new york, new york

This one is an unconventional blog post...it isn't really health or run related...but more so, just plain ole "me" related. Although, with that said, I think some part of this may be related to the change in who I am becoming and where my priorities are shifting.

This past weekend I had an opportunity to go to my most favorite of cities, New York City. I lived there for 12 years and moved back home to RI almost 5 years ago. For 90% of this time I have spoken true allegience to that city,  a city that stole my heart in 1997 and then had it broken living through 9/11 with my fellow New Yorkers.

Anytime I visit...my heart sings as soon as the skyline is in view and hurts when it is time to leave and return to the suburb life I have since become accustomed to. I have some dear friends back there in the city which I love...one of whom I am still close with (a glorious make-up artist) and one, that although we rarely talk anymore, I will always adore her and her beautiful family just the same.

So where am I going with all this...why am I justifying and desperately explaining my love for the city that never sleeps?

Because this past weekend we went down for a day trip. The man (as i like to call him) won two tickets to go see Metallica do an invite only performance at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem. We took the train (even though now, in retrospect, driving would have served as a better option - this is the first of a strange and unusual realization for me). We made it into NYC, out of Penn Station and into a cab up to Harlem ($20 yikes) just in time to get in a super long line. The show itself was amazing but the seats, for lack of a better word, sucked. But they were free, plus an open bar, VIP lanyard and free tshirt. It still felt good even if we were literally in the LAST row of the balcony.

I'm going to take you back a bit though...to when I first walked out of Penn Station to hail the cab. Normally...when my feet hit the pavement, I go into "new yorker mode"...as if I had never left. The energy of the city literally recharges my creative soul and I get back into cycle of the city.

Normally.

But, despite the denial, when I walked out of Penn Station..I didn't feel it. I felt...ugh i hate to say it...overwhelmed. I did not want to have to muscle and run through crowds. My "edge" as my mom used to call it seemed to have gone missing this trip. I know it was there...I still could have called upon it, but I wasn't feeling it.

After the show it was pouring out...another thing that normally wouldn't bother me. But it did..it was exhausting. I wanted to just go home...

Wait...WHAT?

Yup...the plan was to find some place to grab dinner and a few drinks while we waited for a 2:30am train back home to Providence. Normally, (again that word) this would not have been a problem...but the couple places near the station we wanted to go were no longer serving food or CLOSED - at 11:30pm on a Saturday! What the ...?!?

We ended up with pizza slices from a dirty hole in the wall food court in Penn Station. I was miserable, sad, disappointed and soaked to the bone from the rain. I felt like my city had let me down. I didn't understand what had changed...why had it seemed so different???

Until I really thought about it...the city hadn't changed.

I had.

GASP.

After nearly 5 years...FIVE...I finally feel like I am back "home" in RI. I'm literally choked up and in tears at the thought of saying this. At the admittance of this little fact. It may seem silly, but NYC is...was...a big part of who I am now. But I am still growing and changing and discovering how much I now value nature more, value clean eating, value fresh air and trees and just plain quiet (and that is not to say all these things are not available in the massive boroughs of NYC!!!)...but I realize I'm more apt to want to spend a weekend in NH doing a little hiking that hauling my ass all over New York City.

I'm not sure when this happened...but I suspect it happened over the past 6 months or so. Everything look tainted to me when I was in NYC this weekend. I don't know why...maybe suburban life has gotten to me. My mom, a year before she passed away, and not even a year into being back home made me promise her I would never let the NYC side of me go. 

I feel like I'm betraying that promise.



But people change, priorities change, things we love and value and want to experience CHANGE. 

This weekend when I run that half marathon through historic Providence neighborhoods, with beautiful autumn painted trees and fresh, crisp air...i'm going to soak it in and value it like never before.

I will ALWAYS love NYC...we have been through a lot together...but I'm finally home. And it gives me peace to honestly, finally feel that way.