a week ago, i received the lease renewal for my apartment saying my landlord wanted to raise my rent $150/month. after last year's $56/month raise, i called the management company to ask what was up, and received nothing more than "sorry, the market is hot right now. we're not willing to compromise." so i said fuck them and went on my merry way to look for another apartment. turns out, the market is hot right now...meaning, even for a 350 sq ft apartment that is now going to be $1600....i have a pretty solid deal. i mean i have a HUGE bathroom i can sit down in without my knees touching the wall. and that, my non-NY friends, is something to hold on to.
i read an article recently that i really enjoyed, that sort of summed up why it is NY folk really "heart" NY even though sometimes, it's rough to live here. i was really lucky to have ended up here the way i did, with work footing the bill for my move AND putting me up in a temporary apartment for a few months while i got acquainted, and looked for someplace to call home. i'm lucky that the economy had just failed and real estate had dropped so significantly that i was able to find a decent, albeit small, apartment in an area that i feel more than safe walking around in past midnight. but getting that apartment....i mean. the first apartment i was shown had poop in the toilet...like...A LOT of poop. i saw some dirty DIRTY cockroach probably bedbug ridden small ass apartments that smelled of a veritable pu-pu (zing!) platter of cuisines. i had my first good NY cry on rivington street because i had NO idea where i was, and i had to pee so badly but i couldn't find a bathroom. i ended up finding one in a biergarten (that i've never been back to, oddly enough), and ordering glass after glass of wine thinking to myself (and quite possibly aloud to the bartender), why the fuck anyone would choose to move here. that was almost three years ago.
so i found that article, and felt that tingly warm feeling that creeps into your heart. so i read some of the comments, and interestingly enough it turns out that this article was a total "twenty something blogger's ripoff" of a joan didion article from 1967. so i found that article, and it starts here:
"it's easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends."
and i knew she had known what i am feeling now, and why somehow, after i said i would give this city a year or two, i find myself signing yet another year lease that will take me through almost four. and who knows what awaits after that?
i'm creeping up on my 28th birthday and with that comes the sneaking suspicion that i might not be that young anymore, and maybe should think about "the fewtcha." my mom had 2 kids by now at my age, and i'm still doing shots at 4:30am screaming mr big's "to be with you" at the top of my lungs, while willing myself in and out of situations that may not be in my best interest. i keep telling myself it's fun for now. but how long does "now" last before i start doing things to work TOWARDS something. towards some sort of goal. or am i doing that? subconsciously. all i know is that somehow, in some way, this is the first city i've lived in that i haven't had one foot in and one foot out. and it's made me think. maybe this is right. maybe this is what i want, and the things i thought i wanted may not be that important anymore. i'm making new goals. i guess what matters is that i'm happy, and i'm recognizing i have it in me to break the cycle.
and maybe that. that is why i still choose to heart ny.
find yourself, here.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~zkurmus/html/didion.html