This is the last photo I took in NYC and I am actually happy with it. I really didn’t need to capture a picture perfect view of the grandeur that I was leaving behind. This is how I saw the city when I lived there: big, dirty and that I was always a little separated from it. And as I got into a fight with my cab driver as he took me to the wrong airline three times, accusing me of not saying the correct airline, I also wanted to thank him (and the cab sickness) for making it easy to get on that plane.
The day before, and my last full day in NYC, I impulsively decided to walk into a salon I’ve passed a million times and chop off all my dead ends. This was embarrassingly well more than a few inches and I can’t help but blame the city for my unkempt mane. This negligence was partly a fear of the price tag of NYC salons after my last hair-tastrophe, but more so a result of my lethargy about my appearance and NYC. I moved to NYC thinking I would transform into Carrie Bradshaw, but I found myself feeling more like Carrie at the prom. My mom used to lovingly call me a ragamuffin when my hair was a mess when I was little, but in NYC I actually became one.
As I watched the dead ends fall to the ground, I reflected on my final experiences in the city. Just prior to my haircut, I had taken my last subway ride. It was complete with a woman screaming a sermon in spanish to a displeased subway congregation, a mother allowing her daughter to repeatedly touch me with the hot dog she was eating, getting on the downtown train instead of the uptown train (amateur) and spotting the best fed subway rat I’ve seen to date. It was the perfect last ride, and I was completely unscathed by it.
I wasn’t afraid of the haridresser cutting off too much. After surviving NYC there was nothing scary about a bad haircut. Just like my hair, I had really grown during my time in NYC. Maybe it wasn’t pretty, but I had. I thought about my hair and wondered if NYC had also been a dead end for us?
This Forbes article on the 50 things learned by living in NYC, is pretty great. I feel lucky to be able to relate to most of them. In addition, I’ve also learned to take on cockroaches, learned why brokers are called such, figured out how to furnish an apartment with loans and street trash, learned to live and love with no room for space, and most importantly; learned to survive. NYC was not a dead end for us, it just wasn’t our destination. I have left with photos of things I will never see again and stories that I hated living, but love to tell.
As I sat at Laguardia with my one-way ticket, the ticket I’ve longed for, I felt accomplished and excited. The best part of a bottomless mimosa is that you never hit the bottom, you are always just about to have a full cup again. I can’t wait for a full life again. Although, what in the world will I write about? Blue skies and smiling faces? I sure hope so. But there is also always Mormonism and 3.2 beer.
It’s been real (life) New York, but bring on the Utahdventures! Sorry Jay-Z, I’m in a mountain state of mind.