my first true love

my parents aren't sure where i came from.

i mean, there's no denying i'm their kid (see: my clumsiness, love of writing, green eyes, love/hate relationship with the Yankees, etc). but they're not quite sure how i acquired certain interests. 

namely: city living.

considering i spent all of my formative years in a sleepy suburb in southeastern Pennsylvania (which, when i was growing up, had more farms around than strip malls—not so true today), my seemingly undying devotion to New York all but bewilders my parents. i was visiting them last weekend and the hot topic du jour was discussed several times—where Michael and i will live after we get married. 

my dad is really into the $8,000 tax credit currently offered to first-time home buyers. he thinks this is ample motivation to buy a house—it's a buyers' market and the government will throw cash at you if you take the plunge. win-win!

friends and other family members of ours have similar campaigns in progress, envisioning us everywhere from North Jersey to Suffolk County. 

of course there's the not-so-minor issue of not having a down-payment to fork over at the moment. but even more important than the cash issue is the issue of not being ready to leave the city.

i've blathered here before about being so over New York, about the tantalizing siren song of the suburbs. but i've realized over the last year or so that i'm only ever in the 'burbs for a day or two at a time. whether we're visiting family or friends, it's always a very limited exposure to gigantic grocery stores, pristine lawns and air that smells like damp leaves and charcoal grills. who's to say, if we actually moved there, that the infatuation would last more than a month? 

my recollection of growing up where i did was that it was great, truly—cruising around the neighborhood on our bikes all summer, spending hours upon hours in our backyards having adventures no one else could ever understand, finally going inside only when the fluorescent street lights flickered and buzzed into their bluish glow. even now i love lounging in the backyard on a warm evening, driving along stretches of country road that haven't yet been taken over by McMansion developers or Home Depot. 

but, as a kid, i longed for more excitement. i wanted to be where things were happening, where important people went, where the hubbub was. to me, even at a young age, that was New York. 

i saw my Gram last Friday and she had been sorting through old pictures. she had one of me—i couldn't have been more than 10 years old—and you couldn't see my face in the picture because i was reading a book and it was blocking my entire head. the cover of the book said, simply, NEW YORK CITY. 

when my parents and i would drive in from PA to have lunch or dinner, either before or after a Broadway matinee, i looked forward to the exhaust fumes. that is not an exaggeration. when a bus or a truck went by and left in its wake a cloud of gray smoke, i was comforted. i felt like i was home.

that is a ridiculous thing for a kid to notice, let alone enjoy, but it was one of the many things that separated my hometown from the city—something i could get in New York that i couldn't get at home. smog was a better smell to me than, say, fresh cut grass. i found it exciting. i felt like i was finally somewhere. 

it's also quite possible that—in a city of millions and millions of people—i finally felt like i was someone. 

i'm coming up on nine years of officially living in the city. and, granted, i haven't been the best New Yorker. i never had the funds for the trendiest bars or clubs or restaurants. i've never paddled a boat in the lake in Central Park. up until six months ago i'd never been to the top of the Empire State Building. i wasn't even here on September 11th. 

but the more i contemplate leaving—truly giving up life in the city—the more homesick i feel. when i'm walking around my neighborhood in Brooklyn, i can't imagine walking down a sidewalk anywhere else and not passing such a wide array of characters—new faces, old faces, crazy faces. i can't imagine having to get in my car to go to the gym. or going for a run and not being able to make my way to a promenade from which the city skyline and Statue of Liberty are visible. i hate to think about only being in the city when i'm working—rushing to and from some transit hub or another, speeding in and out of tunnels, just a temporary guest.  

the thing that worries me the most, though, about not being in the city anymore is feeling the way i felt when i was twelve, fifteen, eighteen—that i'm missing out by not being there. that life will go all black and white on me, no Technicolor to be found. dramatic, yes, but true all the same. i feel—at this point—that my city-less life will be lacking. 

i said a lot of this to my parents last weekend and that's what prompted them to wonder aloud where i'd come from. 

god only knows, but at least i know where i belong... for now. 

mb