Loving What You Can't Have: My 20 Year Love Affair with NYC

How I wave a cab

They are always say that you want what you can't have. From an early age the minute our parents tell us not to do something it doesn't take long before we're trying to get away from doing that exact thing. Why do we do we do it? Is it the challenge? The thrill?

Needless to say this goes on into our dating life as well. How many times have you been completely enamored with a person simply because you couldn't be with them? I personally am guilty of being completely infatuated with someone the minute they are unavailable or disinterested but god forbid they actually are interested and show that interest, I grow bored quickly and move on. Just human nature I supposed. We're curious beings and we look for the best in ourselves and greener grass.

None can ever be so true than my greatest love, the man I've been chasing all my life, Manhattan. Yes, you read that correctly. I have been in an unrequited love with a city. For about 20 years to be exact, talk about dedicated on a crush right?

I remember going to the New York State Museum in Albany and there being this huge picture of the NYC skyline featuring the Twin Towers and I would just stare at it the way most kids do with Disney World. To me it might as well have been Narnia, Terabithia, and Utopia all rolled into one. I mean my first chapter books as a child was the Cricket in Times Square series for god sakes. In other words, obsessed.  Even when my parents dragged me to the top of the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty and I damn near had a panic attack (Fun Fact, I'm deathly afraid of heights) did my love for this hot mess of a city waver.  The goal was always to graduated what ever East-Jesus no where school I was attending at the time and go to college in the city and finally spread my wings. Of course it didn't quite pan out that way, turns out schools cost money and due to finances I had to settle for a college, ironically enough, in East-Jesus no where. And so started the many heartbreaks and failed attempts at developing a long term relationship with Mr. Manhattan.

For years after I would try and fail. Right out of college with my Sport Management degree I interviewed for a position at Madison Square Garden.  Naturally, I was one out of a million applicants and they didn't want to take a risk on someone out of town. I went on endless job interviews, same scenario every time. I'd looked at hole-in-the-wall apartments where I'd share a walk in closet with 6 roommates in Brooklyn and I was ready for it.  However without an income people tend to not find you dependable for rent, and as we all know, rent is no joke even in the farthest borough of Queens. So this went on for years. I'd try for a few months, except that NYC was "just not that into you" try to move on, move to other states, but in the end, nothing has ever really felt like home, including the city I've pretty much lived my entire 31 years of life in, like the Big Apple.

Taken on the Subway back from my Brooklyn tattoo shop interview 

3 years ago I had an amazing interview with a well established Brooklyn tattoo shop for what would have been my DREAM position, at least for starting out, and I knew I was more than qualified. I remember being almost emotional on the subway ride back to the Port Authority, thinking, this is it, I did it, I finally pulled this off. They liked me, the interview went well, I was confident, I was ready. Then, just like many dates that I thought went well... they didn't call. They didn't return my calls or emails. Needless to say, I didn't get it. I was devastated. I still am. To be so close after so long. I started to feel like maybe it just wasn't happening, but the thought of just settling in the city I am in, a city that keeps getting smaller, like walls coming in on me, I just can't accept it.

Starbucks at St. Mark's Place

The final heartbreak was a mere few months ago when me and my new husband sat in a SoHo Starbucks and really looked at the savings we had and the costs it would be to move as well as first months rent and security.  We had to come to the realization that with no jobs lined up, not even bites, it was just not going to happen for us. The goal during our entire engagement was, suck it up, work hard, get married, then immediately move after the honeymoon so this ugly truth was one of the most painful blows I've had since the Brooklyn rejection. To come to close, to have friends in full support and well wishes made, and to have to admit defeat yet again, when we felt like we were so close. To put it bluntly. SUCKS.

What you have to understand is, I've always been kinda a weird kid. I never really fit in in Elementary school, and then I went on to schools in Kansas or in small towns in Upstate New York where the population of punk rock/grunge/goth kids don't exactly run a muck. Even as an adult I'm kind of the random at any job I work in. I constantly have the "One of these things is not like the other" song stuck in my head from Sesame Street. I call it, "Square Peg, Round Hole" syndrome.  In the New York City I always felt like I found my Island of Misfit Toys. I'm not a freak there. I'm not something interesting for the "normal" folk to watch in fascination, I'm just me. Being someone who's had to move from place to place most of her life, it is amazing when you can find somewhere you could actually put down roots.


Too bad it's difficult soil...

Spontaneous Yoga in Central Park this past October