20 Years in NYC

20 years ago I drove a Penske truck up I-95 with all my stuff in it, most of which I should’ve left behind, and pulled into Greenpoint, Brooklyn to start my life in New York City. Typically I would be experiencing all kinds of anxiety but oddly, I had no anxiety. I knew I was finally going to live where I belonged. My whole life before that, I looked to NYC as a beating heart I could always faintly hear but only got to visit once or twice a year.

NYC was no stranger to me. But NYC can never truly be known. NYC chewed me up and spit me out a few times and some nights I did the very same to it. Sometimes NYC held the whole world in its hand and sometimes it was a small, friendly place. NYC is one long conversation that we’re all a part of, that we drop in and out of seamlessly. NYC doesn’t need us. But we all shovel coal into NYC daily. Sometimes we’re all elbowing each other for inches of space, sometimes the parks and rooftops go on for miles.

NYC has everything. That’s why the everything bagel chooses to live here. NYC is always here for all the former residents who dipped their toes in. NYC is always here for the school groups, the tourists, the kids who never fit in, the bands, the actors, the writers, the dancers, the bartenders, the native NYers, the immigrants, the misguided and lost, the ambitious, and everyone else.

I don’t know what the future will hold, but today marks 20 years in and around NYC. The memories sing and dance all over this city with so many people I’ve loved and laughed with. And the conversation keeps going.