Eight months have quickly come and gone and I find myself looking back and remembering how it all began. I look back at Christmas of 2007 and I remember the immense pain and loss I felt, as I set out to start a new journey in New York City. I knew nothing would ever be the same and yet I held onto the hope that it would. I took a walk down to the water today (East River) and took in the captivating view....yet again. I'm convinced it will never get old. There is something so powerful about sitting at the edge of the river, looking out into the the world's greatest, concrete menagerie.
Millions of people, unleashed and held prisoner to the hopes, aspirations and dreams, that they're unwilling to relent. I am, after all, just one out of 1.6 million people living in this great rising metropolis and fully aware that I too, have been captured.I do believe that we can set out to make our dreams happen. I also believe, that sometimes, it finds you. For a year of my life, I believed that I had set out to fulfill the desires of my heart in NYC...and what I learned, was that the desires, I never knew I had, found me. I wound up working in a new industry, I never knew I loved. I wound up meeting new people, I never knew I was missing. I would up making new relationships...I never knew I longed for.
So the truth is, there are absolutely remnants of my yesterdays, that linger in my heart, in my mind and in the depths of my soul. They are the ghosts of who I was, where I've been, and will always be a part of who I've become. I will never watch Saturday Night Live and not remember the countless nights I spent laughing til' I was nearly in tears with my best...I'll never
watch a Red Sox game or enjoy a bowl of real (and I mean REAL) chowdah and not reminisce about a life I thought was mine. I'll never listen to the waves or feel the blades of grass beneath my feet and not remember the Florida I grew to love and eventually hate. And...I'll never come home to Long Island City and forget what it was supposed to be. I will however, thank God every single day, for what it has become and what it holds. So, while I long to, "travel through a republic (Cambridge) a town (Brookline), and a city (Boston)*," I know that when it happens,
it will be from a new perspective, with a new heart and new life...that will, indeed be mine. It won't be the life I thought I wanted...but nonetheless, a life I now know, I want someday. I guess sometimes...it finds you. I realize that when it does, you cannot let it go. Maybe it doesn't come with the person, place, shape or form, that you originally hoped for...but the core of the dream remains the same.
