I cherish the mosaic of people who became part of my life: my family (who I hardly see but constantly think about), my college buddies (whose one year get-togethers feel like we\u2019re still in school), my work friends (who I lunched and hung out with every day for seven years). All of them came together in this town, New York, where I was born and bred. But as New York natives gather around with pointed questions about my exodus, I\u2019ve began to memorize my answers so as to save them some trouble.<\/p>\n
By rote: I\u2019ll miss the city. Won\u2019t miss the noise or the traffice. No more neighbors banging on my walls. Life will be slower. I’ll get trees instead of concrete. I\u2019ll be all about Walmart. People deserve better answers but I just can\u2019t sit there and tell them everything that\u2019s on my mind. My wife asked me if I\u2019m sad about leaving New York and as the trees zipped by I told her I was.<\/p>\n
I will miss the city, I thought\u2014then stopped; I miss her already.<\/p>\n
I was with her my entire life, breathing her air, feeling her beat and getting to know her rhythm. I knew her scent and adored her uniqueness. I was with her when she had her rough patches and when she went through her ugly phase, dealing with forty second street. I laughed when she stubbornly shined and put the Warner Brothers store dead smack in the middle of it all.<\/p>\n
She seduced me with cheesecake eateries in Brooklyn, Pizza places in Manhattan and Bagel joints in Queens. She glittered with the galleries on Prince, and ruffled her feathers in the West Village…thrilling me with her extravagance. I even danced in one of her gay and colorful parades realizing moments too late that my flailing hetero arms didn\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n
I strolled with her up from South Street Seaport through Chelsea, Mid-Town and right up Museum Mile to the very steps of the Met, enjoying one of her dirty water dogs. I rode her trains from the A at Rockway up to the Z in Brooklyn. I saw her bad sides, her fresh sides, her sweet sides and even those impossibly high sides from the Empire State Building where I would look down at her breath-taking sparkling lights.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve listened to her music on and off Broadway, visited her zoos, parks, pools, playgrounds, and palatial mausoleums. I\u2019ve skated in her rinks, laughed at her Mets, cheered on her Knicks, and stood tall behind her Yankees. In wild abandon, I\u2019ve thrown myself into her waiting arms, sliding down a car-hood near the Cloisters.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve grumbled at her politicians, laughed with her passing stars and visited those places that she always knew about but others decided to point out. I sat in horror watching her towers fall and nearly wept when I could smell the burning chemicals from miles away. I never thought I\u2019d see the day where fighter jets would stalk her skies or where military would stand close by\u2026but I still stayed with her. It took me a few more years for me to accept that she grew up and was now out of my league\u2026I couldn\u2019t afford to be with her anymore. I had to go.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s no way to answer Their questions though. Sure the city is stone and streets\u2026but for me she\u2019s got a warm beating heart. In the end, the mosaic of people wishes me luck and I\u2019m grateful. They make up the texture of my life. As for the city, well she gave me color. I have my pictures, my history and my memories\u2026but, between you and me, I\u2019ve gotta see her again: at least for a bagel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I cherish the mosaic of people who became part of my life: my family (who I hardly see but constantly think about), my college buddies (whose one year get-togethers feel like we\u2019re still in school), my work friends (who I lunched and hung out with every day for seven years). All of them came together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home","category-sweet-nothings","category-town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}