Life in NYC is about change

Life is transient in New York City. The only thing that remains constant here, like anywhere else, is change. From dusk till dawn, 365 days/year, season to season, life zips by like the express trains we rely on. Each stop represents a new friendship, a new relationship, new neighborhood cafes, new roommates, new jobs, new characters that enter and exit our lives.

Today I reminisced the times spent with people who are now gone. I reminisce the places where these times were spent, which are now closed . Perhaps it's the rain that stirs up these feelings of nostalgia that resonate like the smell of dampened earth beneath fallen leaves. I remember places like The Den, Harlem Tea Room, Catty Shack, Grand Café, Solomon's Porch, Brook's Valley restaurant, and the dance party at the former Red Bamboo restaurant now known as something else. I once heard somewhere that one becomes a true New Yorker when they can walk down a street and name several places that used to be there that are no longer there. I found myself now doing so, surprised that I’ve been here this long to see the comings and goings of people and places. How fast the city changes. How fast we change.
Another chapter has closed and another one started. This time I’m in control of my life here in this wild city. I hold my dreams close to my chest, like a mother holds her first born, finally claiming them. Who knew I would ever feel most balanced, loved, and accomplished four years later? Looking back, I remembered four years ago how much I wanted to be where I am today. But I still cherish those times when New York City was a maze, a time when flashing lights were blinding and distracting, a time when my feet hurt from pounding concrete aimlessly in search of something while balancing my weight on heels to impress. Still, I wanted stability. Still I knew that the people I meet will one day move away, finding stability elsewhere. Still I knew that the places where I once relied on for familiarity and chit-chats with friends would be renovated or torn down to be built back up into something new...a post office, a pharmacy, a bodega.
So today I say goodbye to yet another friend. We arrived in NYC the same year and became fast friends. This month she will leave for bigger and better things in LA. The wind knew where we would all end up after four years as it stirred our lives into perspective, brought us together, challenged us to grow, and become wizened New Yorkers on a mission to shine our lights brighter than the brightest of them all. My remaining friends and I will hold our glasses of wine up in salute to the friends who’ve moved on. We will all giggle at the irony of this because, except for the ones who worked endless hours in corporate America, when we started out in this city, all we could afford was rum and coke. So cheers to growth, a sense of direction, fabulousness, success, and most importantly, change!

Nicole © 2010

Share |