New York…the Loneliest Place on Earth

When I was seven I knew I wanted to live in New York. I came with my dad here for the first time. Our train from DC stopped off in Jersey and I thought we were there. “Look at the tall buildings,” I exclaimed. In DC, there’s a height ordinance on buildings so everyone can see the pencil at all times.* “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” my father replied. One look at the excitement and energy of New York and I was hooked. I could imagine no place better and no place more exciting to live.
I went to college in a small town in northern Washington state. It’s a great town and I loved it. After graduating, I didn’t want to leave, and stayed another two years as a barista / aerobics instructor / bar fly. After my post-graduation “Bachelor’s-of-History-party”, I started to get antsy. I had been dating a great guy for about a year and I popped the question. “Want to move to New York?” I asked him. We had just returned from a family reunion in Virginia and were having lunch at the Pike Place market in Seattle before returning north. “Uh….no,” he said definitively. “Oh,” my shoulders shrugged into a pout. After a moment, I looked up from my tuna sandwich and asked, “Want to move to Seattle?” “That I could do,” he said, and we moved two weeks later.
I was settling for a man. I enjoyed my time in Seattle, but I've always wanted to live in New York. Now I'm here, but I'm alone. Emerson once called New York "the loneliest place on earth." While I'm alone, I haven't felt lonely. I hope this feeling of community and excitement continues and I certainly hope Emerson was wrong. I suppose I'll soon find out for myself.

*Note: People who did not go to elementary school in DC might refer to the “pencil” as the “National Monument.”