One Year Ago

At this time last year, I was on a plane to Paris. Just a few hours earlier, the UPS guy had hauled off eight boxes to be shipped to Texas, where I would be in a few weeks. I was no longer part of New York; I was going to back to Texas via Europe.

I still miss New York. I miss my friends there. I miss the craziness. I miss walking the streets. I miss the overwhelmingness. I miss the buildings. I miss the street cafes and the vendors. I miss the music. I miss the small apartments. I miss brunch. I miss the subway. I miss the rooftops. I miss jogging down the East River. I miss the diversity. I miss the way it made me feel to be there.

I remember walking out of the subway stairs one morning shortly after I had moved there, suddenly saddened by the thought of leaving. The City is not for everyone, but for me, at that point in my life, it was. It became my home. It was a year after I moved there that I really felt like that. I was riding in a cab from LaGuardia, after just having been on a vacation to Mexico; as the skyline etched across the darkness of the night, I felt a relief to finally be home. It was weird to think that somewhere so far from my "home" could become such a comfort to me, but it did.

I feel like each day I lose more of a connection to New York, but also I know that each day, I am living another experience. At some point, we move on in life, but I've learned that it's not necessarily a bad thing. I miss the City, but I also know that I can't live in the past or the future. "Living in the moment" is such a cliche saying, but I'm figuring out more and more that that's how to experience life. Remembering the good times but not reliving them; looking ahead but not far forward; and living the now. And right now, the now is pretty good for me.