Right Now I Just Don't Like You

I learned a lesson this week. Live in the moment.

I landed in New York City on the wrong foot and I should have let it fall from my shoulders. If I had done this, I would have made it to the show on time. If I had done that, I wouldn’t have been late for my meeting at the hotel. If this or that or the other thing had or hadn’t happened, my life wouldn’t be so hard. This is the thought that frequented my thoughts during my seemingly endless time in Manhattan.

New York City could never bring me to tears. I was convinced of this the first and second time I visited. Manhattan was always the picture of paradise for me since the day I turned ten years old. The stories of the city chewing you up and spitting you out never got to me. They were folklore; fairytales. They happened in the worlds of others, but not mine. Not mine until I found myself alone in my TriBeCa hotel room, miles from midtown, crying myself to sleep over the drone of a trafficky city soundtrack.

What had changed this time around? I was maybe the most stressed I had ever been leading up to my departing flight and I couldn’t shake it. Lodging had been an issue up to two days before I left. Maybe that was it. I had a full schedule almost every day of the week and had to account for trekking up and down the subway steps, from Lower Manhattan to Upper, fifty-pound suitcase in tow on days I had to relocate.

I was driven to dining alone after the obscene amounts of human interaction that one endures during New York Fashion Week. Chicago deep-dish and Brooklyn lagers after twilight strolls through Central Park was almost enough to set my mind at ease, and then lucky me, back to the twirl and the twinkle of Lincoln Center. It was like this for days. I felt out of place, out of character, dislocated from my very self and situated in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Finally, I spent my last day in Brooklyn. DUMBO, Williamsburg, Bushwick; I saw it all. After a week of getting kicked around on the island, I was more than exhausted and had to work just to have fun strolling shops and seeing sights with the loveliest of friends. All I found myself making small talk about was my misery. My agony. Complaining about what a bad time I’d had during my trip while I was still living it. Didn’t I know New York could hear me? Why didn’t I realize that she could hear everything I was saying about her, badmouthing and all?

My friend’s roommate made me coffee on the day I flew out. I had to leave at something like nine and woke up twenty minutes before, coffee naturally my only priority. I was momentarily touched by the kindness, and suddenly I realized exactly what had been swirling around me all week long. What I was missing. Deflating the air mattress and zipping my suitcase in the next moments felt like a blur. A rush. Something I didn’t want to be over. Half of me was so ready to be home and half of me couldn’t take another step before I had settled my score with the city.

I still had no sense of where I was in relation to the city after staying on some street somewhere in Bushwick for two straight nights. The driver was stopped out front and loaded my luggage into the car before I could say “Empire State Building.” It was all I wanted to go see that morning, at that moment, and I was gone.

It was a morose realization during the hour-long drive to Kennedy. I once imagined that I would someday die of old age, a smile on my face and a song in my heart with not one regret to remember. Now, I’ll be forced to admit “I wish I had appreciated my week in New York that summer I turned twenty-three.” I spent so much time focusing on the negative aspects of my trip that I didn't realize where I was and what was around me. New York City is the most magical thing I've ever experienced, and it has always shown me nothing but kindness and warmth. This was one of the weeks that I let it chew me up and spit me out without any good reason why.

I feel like I'm going to forget this trip easier than I remember any others.