Day 17 - NYC

Thoughts

If I chose to stay here I'd have a pretty good life. I was offered a full time job with the ASPCA, which I currently temp at, and I would totally take the offer if I wasn't leaving. Working for a non profit is one of the few job sectors I would happily commit myself to. I also have fallen in love...a terrible thing to have happen when you are about to set off. Her name is Sabrina and she is a roly poly 19 pound rescue cat that we foster here at the office. I want to adopt her so badly, but she would not handle a cross country trip well, plus it would make finding an apartment much more difficult. She is so fun, so fiesty, and so so so fat. I just love her. Every day that she doesn't get adopted I get a little more sad.

If I was staying I would now have a full time job with benefits and a needy cat to mother. This is why I am leaving.

While I've come to accept New York and all that it is, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I never want to get settled here. I have fought growing roots here the entire time. Though I have lived in my apartment for over three years I have never painted a single wall, never bought a single piece of nice furniture and never even gotten a plant or two for my huge balcony. It's getting to the point now though where the roots will begin to grow whether I like it or not. The last thing I want to do is wake up married and with a baby in New York City at age 35 and ask myself 'How did I let this happen?' New York is a place to explore, experience, and get knocked on your ass so you learn to stand up and brush yourself off with minimal pain. For me though, it is not a place to build a life.

I have to leave before I settle because I can feel it in my bones that I'm ready to start making those longer term decisions when the opportunities to do so arise. Those decisions need to be made in an environment that will make them feel good, make them feel exciting, and make them feel like growth. I want those decisions to take place in a place where I like the smell of the air. I want them to occur in a place where I feel relaxed and open. Most importantly, I want to be in a place where if I feel stress about life changes I can run away to the mountains for the afternoon to clear my head. I seek a balance between culture and nature. I seek a place where I can taste both urban life and rural life. I seek a world where I can find both sound and silence. The only place that seemed to fit the bill (without need of a car) was San Francisco.

San Francisco has always been in the deep dark back of my mind as the next step. The step I was going to take when I was ready to say goodbye to all of the expectations for life that I had when I left college as the idealistic and goal oriented budding actor that I was. That girl had no clue that the goal she had set for herself was actually a reality she would find little to no fulfillment in. It shocked me when I realized it, and it still shocks me now. I spent a decade planning my adult life as a traveling actor, living on bread and trying to find a part time job here or there, maybe catching a break but not really caring if I did or not, because it was 'for the art!'. What a bunch of crap. Man, I sure do like eating. I like being social and drinking a beer and having the extra twenty bucks needed in a night to do that. I like a stable lifestyle. From the outside, people look in and still think my life looks unstable, but I've found a system that works for me and I'm ready to build on it. But if I build on it in New York I will only wake up unhappy knowing that I was never supposed to do that here. New York was necessary for me to discover my personal foundation. The next step is necessary for me to build on it.

Actions

Yesterday was my favorite type of New York day. I love the days when I get to do something competely random and then gorge myself on great food. (There will be pics of this soon but I can't quite post them as I'm on my work computer :) )

Yesterday afternoon was back to Brent's place so that I would sing a few notes on one of his 'With Lyrics' tracks and then dress up as a bully and push him around in front of a green screen for the video of the song. I love doing videos with Brent. He has a huge following and it always makes for an entertaining read of the comment postings. (if you're curious about his work just google brentalfloss and you will be bombarded).

Once done there I met up with the amazing Dan Koplowitz in order to cross another thing off of my final 'To Do List'. Shake Shack! I love love love Shake Shack. It is located in Madison Square Park, my absolute favorite park in the city where I have had some of the best moments in my time here. I don't know what it is about that park but it just doesn't feel like Manhattan. Even in Central Park I am not able to remove "Manhattan" from clouding my mind when I look at its beauty. I can 'appreciate' Central Park and most other Manhattan Parks. But I down right love Madison Square Park. It's one of the few places I will truly miss.

It was Dan's first Shake Shack experience. He was satisfied (of course). We gorged ourselves and then spent the evening walking around the area slurping on our milkshakes (Chocolate Peanut Butter of course, though Dan got Vanilla...boring!)