I have to admit that even though I’ve been back in New York since September 2, 2021 (and really only gone for ten days before that), I still don’t feel like I’m back - mentally back that is.
I don’t want to say that I’m over New York, because that sounds like it’s a permanent state of mind, but the truth is I am over New York right now. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to live in a small apartment, a less than 700 square foot space with one closet, one desk and no office or outdoor space. I don’t want to pay more in rent then someone in Los Angeles pays for being in a lofty, large 2000 square foot home that they own, but still I think I do. I’m over the pollution of New York, over the fact that just a few minutes ago I was outside chatting on the phone with a friend when the smoke from a garbage truck made my lungs hurt. I don’t want to worry about where I walk and what might happen. But in New York I do worry. Well, sometimes I do. At least when I walk over the Williamsburg Bridge, which is something I’ve done, btw, every day this week. I don’t want to think about what will happen if someone decides to blow the bridge up. But I do. And I don’t want to think about what will happen if I inhale all the car fumes as I walk. But that’s the kind of stuff I think about these days. At least when I’m home, in New York.
On the other side of it all, I do love New York. I love it so much. There’s no place else in the United States where you can eat a lot of great food 24 hours a day, where you can socialize with so many people in so many places and where you can get around without a car. There’s no other city in the US with this much energy, and when I feel the energy coarse through my veins, that inspires me.
And there aren’t many places where you can do so much for so little, and where the pulse of the universe is just steps away from wherever you are. There’s no other place full of media types, and not just people trying to break into show biz, like in LA. And unlike SF (and parts of LA), not everyone in NY is in, or knows someone in, the sex industry. And I like that here there are still places that one can trailblaze in my chosen profession.
Still, I sit here at a coffee shop listening to a song I know but can’t identify, thinking about how much I love my friends, my cat, my man - and still I don’t want to always be here. And right now I don’t ever want to be here. But I want to be here too. Because it’s the place to be, to make it, to do whatever you want to do. I mean it’s cheesy but true, if you can make it here…
I just need space. And that’s not something you get a lot of when you live in New York. And that’s the bottom line. I’ll be fine. I’ll get over it. I’ll love being here again. Heck, I even love it right now. But not the way I used to love it. And I don’t like being so fickle, but hopefully it’s just a phase, and hopefully when I take some more time to get away, I’ll miss this place more than I ever imagined. It’s happened before. I hope it happens again.