nyc, round two

Second summer in NYC without an actual residency and it's different this year.

It's occurred to me today that I'm impatient and exasperated with much of what the city holds for me, especially with certain individuals. I alternate between feeling somewhat forgotten and angry at that, to angry at people who remind me of a time when I was more confused than I am now, namely last summer.

This is the first time since 1996 when I first summered in NYC whilst still in college that I feel like a foreigner in my own city. Of course I can blend in easily enough, routine and all-- starbucks in the morning, followed by rushing down the subways stairs while trying to balance a nyt, latte and gym shoes in the same hand as i did for my metro card, which is later inevitably followed by a drink at Jakewalk and perhaps some food on smith street. The routine fits me like a well-worn glove, but the feeling of loneliness is not the same. In times past I would often feel alone, but wistfully alone, as though the city offered endless possiblities just waiting for me. This time I feel somewhat abandoned and displaced. I've caught myself taking photographs of seemingly familiar sites-- the corner of Smith and Sackett, the walk to Boca Luppo-- as though I am trying to jar some memory of a feeling that is in abeyance.

And this summer the friendships feel different, more distant. People who used to hold secure places in my life and me in theirs have slipped away. I know very little about their lives, thoughts, dreams, and angst. Even as I lie here a bit sadly reminiscent of better times past, I think that maybe it's time to let a lot of that go. I tend to cling to old ideas, feelings, moments. Maybe a head doctor would say that I've failed to reach the next developmental stage because I've been so hung up on my friends.

Or maybe I'm just being dramatic.