(An Updated) Musing on New York

Gaby Showalter
Jul 28, 2017 · 6 min read

The city of dreams, the capitol of the world, the city that never sleeps — all well-earned nicknames for the center of the western world. New York is all of this and more, and less. And because of this fame — placed by generations of brush strokes and cameras chords and pens — we have a tendency to romanticize the city. Certainly, there’s plenty of romance already in New York, but the city is also a lot grittier than many want to portray. It’s bad for business to show the grimy underbelly, so New York sticks to the staples — towering buildings and Central Park and yellow taxis, and intertwined in everything, an intangible song only New York has — a melody of golden opportunity.

In New York, you brush shoulders with supernovas — in line behind a famous actor at the store, or trying to focus on the paintings at the Met instead of the person you’re pretty sure is actually your favorite singer across the exhibit room. These tiny collisions bring each time a sense of hope, and even the low places of Manhattan are packaged this way. *This* actor used to buy coffee at this neighborhood shop, and so-and-so only had $1.32 in their account when they got that multi-million-dollar book deal. And that’s wonderful, and inspirational, and true. But it leaves people with the hope that if they just pay their dues, they too will get a penthouse.

Growing up in a tiny town, New York was a gilded escape. One bus ride away was the most important place in the world, the hub from which every major metropolitan city becomes a spoke in a massive, industrial wheel. I was mesmerized by the wave of subway commuters. I was swept up into the surf of the city like a rolling ocean tide, and felt exhilaration. Eventually, as a wave goes, it broke, and I was deposited onto the shore, exhausted.

“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”, New Yorkers say with bags under their eyes and coffee in their veins. They’re still “making it”, and anyone with more than 6 hours of sleep under their belt is a quitter. The rat race is real, and I’ve spent my whole life waiting for the starting gun. I spent so long at the edge of my adolescent life, waiting for the start, that I never considered how bleak the middle would look, where you could no longer see the start and couldn’t see the end. I ran anyway, and felt guilty every time I spent $22 on a burger or $6.50 for a train ticket, and told myself I should be saving my money for a better life instead of using it to pretend I already had one.

For my whole life, I thought adulthood would be a vertical, linear line. Undergrad education at Oxford or an Ivy, then to New York to write. A book deal at a young age that would grab the attention of The New York Times. A blossoming career and a small but cozy apartment in the Village, and business dinners and book signings and moleskin notebooks filled with quick scrawls of ideas too excited to wait for my pen. But, that didn’t happen. In high school, most Friday nights were spent in the company of my ACT book, or else finding something new to pad my resume. I was so consumed with this future I had constructed, I never stopped to consider how narrow the path I was laying ground for was. There was no margin for error or time for deviation. So when I didn’t get into any of the schools I’d worked for, I felt like my entire path had shifted. It looked like a slight change, the small metal switch of a train track, but as I went along it seemed to go further from the plan I’d curated in my mind.

This unplanned change weighed heavily on me. I was in New York, but not the way I wanted to be. I was putting $1 in my metro card in dimes and nickels because that’s all I had left, and I heard myself saying brusque “No”’s to anyone on the street with a flyer. I passed by the townhouses and publishing houses, high-class salons and world-class clothing stores. The best of the whole world was right here, and I couldn’t touch any of it. My face had the weariness of the New Yorkers I passed on the streets as a kid. When I was little, I’d pass them, and wonder to myself, “why are they so sad? They’re in the best place in the world!” But what they don’t tell you as a kid is that it’s really hard to be in New York, surrounded by stardom and success, while you feel like a failure.

So somewhere along the rat race I thought to myself, what does the finish line even look like? I had dreamed of reaching it for so long, I’d never even stopped to consider what it would even bring me. And what if crossing the finish line isn’t enough? What if I get to the point where I can afford those $22 burgers and expensive clothes, and there’s still more I can’t reach? What if it’s just the beginning of another race promising paradise, and another and another?

So. My vertical line looks a lot more messy now, with U-turns and blockages and endless circles. I thought I had it all figured out, and that working hard enough would bring everything I dreamed, but it turns out that plenty of people work hard. Plenty of people rub the sleep from their eyes and make another cup of coffee and keep going. How many hard workers never made history or got what they wanted, never got that golden ticket or recognition they dreamed about when they passed out after their long days? I want to believe that my hard work will be fruitful. But I think to believe that hard work is a currency you can exchange for success is less true than we’re made to believe, but it’s easier to swallow than the alternative.

I still believe that everything begins and ends in New York. I was born there, and I’ve lived my whole young life in the green distance of the city. I still believe in that apartment and those notebooks, and even in that book deal. But I think for now, I need something new. If life took away the hope for my linear plan, maybe it’s time to throw it out entirely. And that’s really, really fucking terrifying, for me. I wake up every day itching to do something, anything, to take back the reins of a fate I no longer feel I have control over. It’s like Russian roulette for my life, and I could end up with either everything or nothing at all.

New York is still beautiful and hopeful and everything the movies say it is. It still inspires song after song after novel after film, and for good reason. It symbolizes hope, and diversity, and fortitude, and ambition. But it is also toxic for me right now. I’m not taking myself out of the rat race — I just need to focus on my own pace instead of constantly trying to catch up to those in front of me. Because the truth is, they might never reach the finish line. I might never reach the finish line. So, I want to find somewhere worth running, not for the sake of destination, but for the view as I go along.

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