New York's Not My Home

Well things were spinnin' round me
And all my thoughts were cloudyAnd I had begun to doubt all the things that were meBeen in so many placesYou know I've run so many racesAnd looked into the empty faces of the people of the nightAnd something is just not right, 'cause I know

New York's not my home. I hate myself for saying it out loud, but it is the truth.

If you know anything about it, you'll know that New York was always my thing. If you asked me where I was from I was quick to say that although I was brought up in Delaware, I was born in Queens. I had to let everyone know- New York is my place. It is where I belong. It is my home.

This morning I got on the train as I went to work and sat down in a seat and a woman across from me started to make quite a ruckus about my chair. I tried to ignore her as it was early and I was tired and I just wanted to sit in peace for the 20 or so minutes, but she wouldn't be ignored. Apparently the gentleman before me had urinated on himself whilst sitting in the seat that I was currently sitting in, the girl next to me explained. But, he had turned to the side (the side was closest to the aisle) and... I guess peed on the floor? The girl assured me that the seat was urine free and that she wouldn't have let me sit there had it not been. We chatted and exchanged names and she gave me her business card and it was quite lovely. But in the midst of our chat she asked me how long I had been here, and then how long I thought I might stay.

For whatever reason, we are most honest with strangers.

I told her that I had been here for about 14 months and ... I honestly didn't know. If you had asked me when I first moved here I would've said that I am dying in this city, (preferably in one of the parks since I refuse to die in a hospital... but more on that later), but now I can't say that for sure. Maybe I was just disillusioned by all of the slammed doors in my face or the lack of whatever I thought would happen to me once I moved here, but all of the magic is gone.

Though all the streets are crowded
There's somethin' strange about it
I Lived there bout a year and I never once felt at home
I thought I'd make the big time
I learned a lot of lessons awful quick
And now I'm tellin' you
That they were not the nice kind
And it's been so long since I have felt fine, that's the reason that

New York is mean and dirty and I don't belong here.

Yes, there is so much wonder to hold and I know that... but I feel that I have to force myself to remember that. After work I have to do everything in my power to not comeback and spend my evening binge-watching T.V. (currently catching up on this season's Call the Midwife - IN LOVE!)

The problem is, I told the girl, that where else could I possibly go?
Back home? I love my family and the 4 or 5 friends that still reside in the state, but what is there for me? What career, what future? So then what, perhaps another city? Boston, D.C., L.A., Chicago... maybe, but am I ready to uproot my whole life only to find out that they don't fit me either? I am at least beginning to conquer the demon known as the Big Apple, and as they say, it's best to stick with the demons you know.

(It also doesn't help that I just signed a 2 year contract with my job...)

I honestly feel that if I were to leave NYC I would have to leave the country altogether because after NYC, what else is there? When I was waiting to hear if I had received this job with Macy's or not, all of my back-up plans involved me leaving the country. A little dramatic? I mean, maybe. Necessary for my mental sanity? Absolutely.

But then if I don't fit in here, the most blended place on Earth, where else could I go?
This also ties in with the career bit- while I am thrilled to be employed full time again and forever grateful to Macy's for giving me a second go- I wasn't a little girl who dreamed of working in retail/fashion and/or business and management. I wanted a lot, but none were that. Twenty some years later I realize that I have a decent capacity for these things and I want to stay with it for as long as I can, but will it make me feel joy each morning (or late night)? I'm just not sure.

If my life were a novel, wandering would be a major theme. I can't ever seem to settle- not because I am adventurous, but because I never seem to find my place, and that makes me so, so sad.

If you are hoping to move here, please don't let my whining discourage you. I am a chronic complainer and glass half empty type, so maybe it isn't New York, maybe it is me. (Which is even scarier, because that leads me to believe that I will never be happy anywhere which is waaaay too much for me to swallow this late at night.)

Let me know if your city suits me better, I'll be forever indebted to you.


Many thanks to an ex-boyfriend who introduced me to this song... at least he left me with one good thing.

Sargeant Nicole's Lonely Hearts Club

We all feel it. So why is it so bad to say it?

I am lonely.

I am so painfully, bitterly lonely. I feel it like the cold in my bones that just can't be shaken, layer after layer.

Loneliness lingers. It fades away just enough from moment to moment, just enough to let you know how terrible it is once it returns.

Loneliness is not just being alone. It is feeling isolated. It is feeling abandoned. It is feeling trapped.

When I think of being alone, I think of this bit from The Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers.

Eowyn: Leave me alone, snake!
Wormtongue: Oh, but you are alone. Who knows what you have spoken to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all your life seems to shrink, the walls of your bower closing in about you, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in? So fair, yet so cold like a morning of pale Spring still clinging to Winter's chill.
Eowyn: Your words are poison!

Eowyn, as usual, is right. His words are poison. But that doesn't mean that they don't feel real to her. That doesn't mean that they don't bounce around in her room after her leaves.  

So now I sit here, in my little basement apartment eating macaroni and cheese shaped like Spongebob characters and try to hard to evade this. I catch up on my favorite tv shows. I texted at least 6 different friends. I even called my mother at 10:30 pm and woke her up.

This is no one's fault. It is no one's burden. It is not anyone's responsibility to make me feel the opposite of what I currently feel.

Nights in the basement are particularly hard- the awareness that I don't know a single soul in my entire borough makes me shrink down to an eighth of my actual size.

I thought back as to how I dealt with this during previous moments similar to this one.
Studying abroad in Greece. Transferring to the University of Delaware. Days when I felt accomplished just by putting on shoes.

In Greece, I wandered and I spent money. I went in any which way hoping for the best, and buying any small thing along the way to make me feel better. A snack, a tea, usually a new pair of flats or a scarf. I took photos, I sang song to myself. I would get lost on purpose. I told myself that loneliness was an adventure. I found out towards the end of our trip I often wandered to what was considered the "bad" part of town. That was my first true experience of feeling insignificance and hopelessness in such a way. I coped and it ended. I rarely remember that part of the trip, until now.

Delaware hurt me so.
I had such incredibly high hopes and fell so far down. Friends, please don't move anywhere during the month of February, nothing good can happen in February. As I've stated too many times, I have trouble making friends. It was so much worse when I was 19. I filled my days then with trips to Goodwill and the antique shop, baking lots of anything, bubble tea dates at T'Licious, wandering in and out of the boutique shops I could never afford. I held as many jobs and worked as often as I possibly could, excusing my inability to have friends on my hectic work schedule. And this is not to say that I suffered a constant loneliness. I had lovely, dear friends who were so good to me and brought such joy into my life. But that's the thing about loneliness. On the nights I couldn't find those friends, even if it was just to have a Netflix marathon night, I shrunk.

It is no secret that New York has not been my friend. Maybe it is a lesser secret that I haven't tried as hard as I could to make it so. Every day there is somewhere that I can be, something that I could do. I have a slight amount of friends now that I could call to twice as often as I do. But I do not have it in me to attend things alone. All I do is remember that I am alone. That I couldn't procure on other human to interact with. Yes, I could go to the Met at look at something new each day. Yes, I could sit on a park bench in Central Park and watch the world happen before my eyes. And when I have the stamina, I will. Being lonely is exhausting.

Sometimes, it is so perfect to have a tea and a book and shade by a tree. And I love those days and those moments. But I love those days and moments because the rest of my life is filled. Filled with a variety of things and people that make my heart want to explode and so moments of being alone are not equated with moments of being lonely.

You don't have to remind me how dramatic this all is. I'm well aware.

With all of this said, I know that how I feel isn't real. Well, it is real to me, but it isn't what is real. People continually come to my rescue and lavish love on me in a variety of ways. I am comforted, listened to, and prayed for. I know that this is true and I am sure that as soon as the sun is shining again and I don't have to stay within 5 inches of a space hearter I will remember this more. I am sure that as soon as I have a healthy career and can feel proud of myself that I will remember this more. I am sure that as soon as I have a community, an apartment, roommates, and lifestyle, a culture, I will remember this more. But until then, it is extremely difficult. And so I write blog posts that will make me cringe later. I write blog posts that I don't know- and can't know who reads. I won't know that if the next time you see me or not you'll have read this and pity me. Or want to be my friend. Or cringe for me because it is so awkward to spill your guts to the blank world of the internet.

I do know that this will save me for tonight. To say how I feel and be unashamed of it (for now). To send out this post, knowing that it will be read and therefore I will connect with someone. That someone will read this and feel the exact same way, and tell me and we will know that we are alone together.

NEW YORK IS NOT FOR LOVERS

No one move here. Seriously. Everyone stay right where you are. This place is the devil.

As we all know, I don't have, and would desire full time work. So I mustered up all of my self esteem and went to Craiglist and applied for a few jobs and one asked for the candidates to stop by and "chat for 5 minutes."

Great! I thought, I can finally get some face time as opposed to just another resume, this is awesome.

I walk 20 minutes in this frozen, grey, disgusting WASTELAND (well, the sun is out, so, it's not so bad) and find this place. After standing outside like a moron, trying to again gather all of the self esteem I have (forget courage at this point), I walk in. I am then directed by a blonde man to an iPad to take a test.

A man who walked in a moment after me was also gestured towards an iPad for his test. He looked at the blonde man and in broken English explained that he has been doing this job for years, and to test him in a more practical way. Let him show them what he can do. The blonde man is not even slightly reciprocating and merely points to the iPad for to just take the test. This goes on for a moment or two until the man also applying for a job leaves in a huff.

I am secretly glad, thinking that this guy is going to make me look good. I flash a smile that says, "See, I'll take the test, I will be a good worker, hire me! Hire me!"

The blonde man doesn't smile back. I sit down to take the test.

After filling out my name, email address, level of education, desired salary and current credit score, the page redirects me to the test.

OMG guys. It was an 11th grade English test. No 4 year Bachelor's degree prepared me for this.

It wanted me to answer the following 25 questions discerning the meaning of the specific prefix or suffix.

Example:  "Ben-" in "Benign"
a. Too much
b. Good
c. All around
d. Bad

(hint: the answer is "b")

I would say I knew most of them, but honestly there were about 5 or 6 that I had virtually no clue what they meant.

After, I stood there like a schmuck for about 5 minutes until I saw a guy walked by and called after him, inquiring as to why I was standing there like a schmuck and he directed me down the hall to where the blonde man was. I asked about the "chat" that the  Craigslist ad had mentioned and was told that if I passed the screening, I would be notified.

Oh yeah, I was applying to be a hostess.

So, you know, if you think it's not too hard to get a job around here...