Tag Archives: New York City

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When You Suddenly Feel Lonely…

This weekend was one of those perfect ones in New York: full of celebrating, wine and laughter. I bounced between birthday dinners and themed parties, had long walks with Lucy and long talks with my closest friends. After two full days on-the-go, I was excited about a relaxing Sunday to check off my to-do list for the week.

I started with a light brunch with my friend A, catching up about her European travels and then grocery shopped for my new diet, weaving in between the crowded aisles at the (cheap and totally worth the hassle) Fairway on the Upper West Side. I even held true to my unspoken New Year’s resolution to make more eye-contact and small talk with attractive men, casually asking for help reaching the salad dressing and where to find the frozen chicken. Neither conversations resulted in anything, but did boost my ego for .05 seconds. After trekking on the train and cuddling with Lucy, I looked out the window by my bed at the blue, wet city below and I…

…suddenly felt very lonely. 

Instead of giving into the random sadness, I took a deep breath and analyzed the situation: I’ve had a full weekend of fun and excitement and even relaxation, I have nothing to be upset about, so why do I feel this way? I took another deep breath (they truly help with everything) and counted just a few things I’m thankful for (this apartment, this puppy, my family, my amazing friends, this banging booty that helped me pull off a Beyonce costume on Saturday night) and got myself up out of bed with determination: I was going to distract myself and not let myself fall into a funk like I did in 2013. Not this year, not this time.

So I meal-prepped for the entire week. Then I swept and mopped all of the floors. I gave Lucy a new chew bone. I made myself some hot tea. I emptied out my inbox. I wrote down ideas for blog posts. I hung a fun sign on our front door that encourages happiness. I responded to some messages on OkCupid. I took out the trash. I tidied my room and made my bed. (And I would have gone running if it wasn’t raining and very cold.)

And at the end of all that, I came out to the lemon-y smelling living room with my chamomile tea while Lucy slept on the dog-hair-covered futon, and I still felt a little sad. I took yet another deep breath and admitted what was bothering me: I wanted was someone to cook dinner with, watch something on TV, snuggle in bed, maybe have some lazy sex, perhaps split some wine and fall asleep. I’ve gone on many dates, but I haven’t had that level of comfortability in quite some time — nearly two and a half years, to be exact. I do long for that, I do want that, I won’t settle for less than that, but on rainy Sunday nights, it’s easy to feel cold and alone.

What helps (for me) is remembering that I’m always exactly where I’m supposed to be, that I’m always the person I’m supposed to be at this point in my life. I remember that I’m so very lucky and most of the time, so happy with the life I have. I remember to write down my dreams and to remind those I love just how much they mean to me. I try to do a good deed (even if it’s just letting Lucy run in the rain). I try to remember that most everything is temporary, and that this feeling will pass and another one — splendid or terrible — will come. I change something small or I make sure my living area feels homey with a candle or some tea. I take a long bath or close my eyes and think of things that make me smile without hesitation.

So as I write this blog on Sunday night, texting my friends for their advice, I do feel a bit lonely. Somewhat sad. But I’m riding the wave of lonely – and so can you. Here are how my dearest do it:

“I try to do something nice for someone else… write a surprise card, send an encouraging text message, or just call someone I haven’t talked to in awhile. I go for a long run. I write it all down for me — not to share. I mindlessly surf Pinterest. I succumb to the glory that is retail therapy. And sometimes, I watch a documentary about people who have it worse than I do.” -M

“I do a lot of self-care. I clean everything – up and out. I throw away a lot of things. I do yoga, take long deep breaths, and  long walks where I just pay attention to every detail. I guess my big thing I do (thanks therapy) is trying to identify the source of the problem, and then I try and cut myself some slack and decide how and what I’m going to work on. It’s all about the process.” – A

“I have a music playlist or have a mental pep talk with myself in a quiet (but public) spot… like in a park, on the river, outside on my stoop. Or I go to this bar where I’m a regular, it’s my happy place. But… going to a bar is not the most constructive…” -E

“I exercise. I read uplifting material. I remind myself that this is just one day and that everything works out in the great divine order. I also go to bed. I look at nature. I think about how big God really is and how much we are loved and taken care of. Also count my blessings for all of the good in my life. Just takes practice.” -Mama Tigar

“I try to do something productive, something that gets at the cause of that loneliness, which is really just fear that I’ll never have a full life unless I meet someone. Putting extra money into my IRA or finally comparing my health insurance options isn’t exactly a feel-good experience, but it reminds me that I’m a capable adult who is going to be fine no matter what. Not to mention, my white knight’s arrival is a lot less urgent if I have medical coverage and enough money to pay for my own retirement.” -K

“I pray and I read the Bible.” -N

“I think about how lucky I am for the things and people in my life.” -J

“I kinda just let it ride out until the mood or the thought passes, like what the little girl says in The Tree Grows in Brooklyn: ‘Let the hurt waves pass through.” Also, I take a hot shower, ride out the thoughts and listen to some happy pop music.” -K

“I get my nails or hair done, buy a new dress or something pretty to make me feel good. I also change something as simple as the curtains or the pillows or do something that I’ve been meaning to do. You never want to over-analyze. If I feel down, I do something that brings a little joy. I think the key is getting your mind off of it.” -M

“I have a photo album on my phone that I call my ‘Be Happy’ file. They’re pictures of quotes. Quotes I found on Pinterest or see on Instagram or statues I like on Facebook.  Quotes about uncertainty and fear and bravery and being vulnerable or other things I’m lacking or I’m afraid of or that inspire me.” -R

This Valentine’s Day, write a self-love letter to yourself and it’ll be published (anonymous or not) on Confessions of a Love Addict! And you enter yourself to win a prize! Learn more here. Submit here. 

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Dear Boy

Dear boy who showed up drunk on our very first date.

After you moved our meeting time three times because you were running late. You showed up fifteen minutes past when you said you’d be there, and I watched you stumble in. You looked remarkably like someone I already knew, but I tried not to notice your slight case of alcoholism. I smiled and answered your questions, as awkward and intrusive as they were. I attempted not to judge you when you finished three beers before I finished my first glass of wine and after I declined a second one, I politely waited for you to finish your fourth Bud Light. Though you did insist on paying, you also tried to insist on me coming home with you, though I had to open the cab door for you because you couldn’t open it yourself. I laughed as you asked for my number (when you already had it) and then again when you mentioned how much fun we would have if I would stay the night with you (after I already refused before). When you texted me the next day making a joke about drinking too much, I sweetly let you down, and you responded saying I should be more forgiving and go with the flow.

Dear boy who ignored me when I wouldn’t sleep with you on our third date.

I really did like you. I really did feel such a great, amazing connection with you. It was nice to have an educated, interesting conversation with someone that wasn’t based on the basics of New York: where you’re from, what you do, what part of the city you live in, OMG this weather is awful/awesome. I loved the places you picked for our dates and even more so, how you insisted on walking me home and like a gentleman, kissing me goodnight without pressuring to come upstairs. I liked how you sent me funny memes and remembered things about our conversation that I didn’t even recall, and how you set up another date before the date we were on was over. I thought that maybe you and I would be something, something more than a handful of dates or a drunken encounter – but then you disappeared when I wouldn’t give it up on our last date. A day passed. A week. And I realized that even though you talked about many wonderful things that could possibly be, the thing you wanted more than anything was to get jerked off. Sorry I’m not sorry that I disappointed you.

Dear boy who refused to leave Brooklyn on a Saturday night when the L train was down.

The first time we were supposed to meet up, you got too tipsy with friends you haven’t “seen in a long time” and couldn’t stumble your way to a bar to meet me. It was really considerate of you to cancel less than hour before our date, after I showered, walked the dog and was just about to get on the train. I did actually appreciate your sincere and honest apology, and I thought our first date was intriguing and had easy, casual energy. Your motivation and passion for what you do was inspiring and well, I loved that you were 6’3” and held doors open for me. Your follow-up text message that night and the following day were enticing enough for me to agree to a second date. And though I was hesitant about going to your neighborhood, I agreed anyway. But when the trains stopped working and I asked for a compromise that was equally convenient (or inconvenient) for both of us, and you couldn’t be bothered to move from your street (and let’s be honest, your bed, I’m guessing), I couldn’t be bothered to deal with you.

Dear boy who doesn’t know how tall he is or what he does for a living.

Your text messages were alluring and convincing – I really thought our date would be fascinating. But before I even walked in the door, I knew I had been tricked. I’m sorry, but 6’0” and 5’7” are not the same thing – not even close. Especially when I wear heels to impress you on our first date. And while I still would have gone out with you if you said you were merely interning somewhere, I was annoyed that you claimed you lived and worked here. When in reality, you’re just here for the summer. I would have let all of that slide except that you couldn’t keep eye contact for even a second in the 45-minutes we drug out that one drink. Your eyes met my breasts and my legs, my ass and my knees, but never once did you look at me. I tried to brush it off, but I probably showed my anger when as we went to part ways, you joked: “So next time, let’s just do your place.” Let’s not.

Dear boy who showed up wanting to get laid when I was running 100-degree fever.

I liked the outdoor space where we had a few too many cocktails and then went to your friend’s 30th birthday party. I thought it was odd you wanted to bring me along, but we had so much fun dancing and chatting with everyone you knew that I couldn’t wait to go on another date with you. It was so nice of you to show up not only on time, but early, and to order my favorite glass of wine so it was waiting for me. Though I couldn’t decide how attracted I was to you, I was attracted to your personality and the way you expressed yourself. I told myself not to be so picky, to give you a chance, and so I did, on another date. But then I got sick. And I was going out of town. And though I didn’t want to cancel on you, I could hardly get out of bed and barely breathe through my nose, so I did. You surprised me when you said you’d bring soup and drive me to the airport the next morning. When you showed up sans-chicken noodle and pushed me onto my bed, attempting to rip my clothes off and I stopped you, I was appalled when you said: “What, you don’t want to? It’s our fourth date.” After I sweetly kicked you out and cursed you, I made a mental note to always go with my gut.

Dear boy that I loved for three years too long.

You were the best and the worst of them all. You were a boy before we dated and I dreamed you into a man, nursed you into a gentleman and you turned right back into a boy, fooling me every move, every month, every fuck along the way. Your love and what I hoped for us was felt like a shadow extending over everything that I did – always lurking, always promising something that would never be. It took every ounce of dignity, every last slice of pride, every piece of courage I had to finally walk away from you. To block your number and send your emails to trash. To push you out of my life, my thoughts, my lingering belief in impossible possibilities. I loved you in ways that I didn’t know I could love, and you changed me in powerfully painful ways I didn’t know someone could ever inflict. And though everyone told me that it would happen one uneventful day and I never believed them, my attachment to you released in an instant. The heartstrings let loose, my tears ran dry and though you’ll always be somewhere in my thoughts, you’ll never be anything more than a memory. A bittersweet memory that prepared me for the worst of it in New York. If I can survive you, I can survive anything.

Dear me.

You don’t always think you’re doing it right, and more often than not, you’re embarrassed by your insecurities. You blame yourself for everything that goes wrong with some boy, some relationship, some date, even though it’s not (always) your fault. You constantly obsess about being too much or too little, if you’re pretty enough or far too picky to find that love you look for. You keep going when the going gets tough, and though you have your tantrums, you never lose hope. You never give up. And I’m proud of you for that. For never settling, for standing up for yourself, even when it’s the hardest thing to do. Even when your friends think you’re too harsh and when they give advice you don’t take. I’m inspired by how you lead your life with love, even if the love you want the most is not at reach. I know you don’t want to date yet another boy, but do it anyway. Learn from it. Write about it. Help other women. Let all of those dear boys pass through your life because they’re just making you stronger, getting you one step closer to the you that you’re meant to be.

And if you keep believing, closer to the man – not the boy – that’s meant to be, too.

PS: If you have a “Dear Boy” letter you’d like to share, comment below or email me: confessions.loveaddict@gmail.com. I’ll publish them anonymously or linking back to your blog or social account. 

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Something So Very Special

I found myself angry and upset, not sure why I wanted to cry and yet, hoping I didn’t let a single drop out while riding the uptown train on Saturday night to the home that doesn’t feel like one on the Upper West Side. I wasn’t drunk — or I suppose, I’m not drunk, is a better use of words considering I’m writing this at 1: 25 a.m., with every intent of publishing it on Monday.

On my blog, this blog, this very public, yet insanely personal blog that I happen to share with everyone I do and don’t know. This blog that is supposed to be about learning to love myself with or without a man. That’s supposed to be about being totally fine with being totally single, totally fine on my own, not letting men affect me, letting them come and go with their douchebagery-ways, their terribly disappointing manners, their shortcomings that aren’t supposed to matter to me. No matter how many times some man gives me five minutes or two weeks of hope, only to take it away in a second, or by falling off the face of my iPhone.

I was actually supposed to have a date tonight — a second one, which if you’ve read earlier posts you would know are my favorites. Merely because they are often so rare, with so many first dates that bore or well, traumatize you. So when some random guy that happened to be intriguing enough to agree to see again proved to be uncompromising and pretty much only in it for sex, I made plans with K, then met up with J and her guy, and the night went on. I went on – unaffected, perfectly content, not upset that some man couldn’t meet me in the middle, couldn’t get enough energy to make an effort to impress or even see me.

But I was frustrated. I was upset.

Maybe not by this specific man or this specific situation, but that these types of things happen so often that I find myself incredibly exhausted of talking about them. Much less writing about another failed date to share with the world. If I was honest, as I am here on these pages, I’d admit that I don’t want to date. I don’t want to go out on a Saturday night. I don’t want to spend unnecessary money on unnecessary vodka tonics in the hope that my next one will be free. I don’t want to stay out so late and be so tired the next day I can’t go for a run because I held onto the possibility that I’d stumble across someone worth talking to over loud music in a busy, sweaty bar. I don’t really want to do any of it at all.

But I do it anyway.

Because I refuse to give up, because I refuse to become completely bitter or to stop going after what I want. Because I don’t want to listen to everyone who says the best things come when you’re not looking because when are you ever not looking? Because the best dating advice can’t simply be to have fun and let it come, because that feels utterly impossible, month after month, year after year, date after date, date, date.

That can’t be the answer. If there’s any answer at all.

I started writing this blog to not feel just like I feel right now, writing this blog. Hopeless. Annoyed. Angry. Frustrated. Sad. Unworthy. Disappointed. Impatient. I never wanted a lack of a someone to change who I was or to let anyone be so important that they mattered. But maybe that was a pipe dream, something that can’t be ignored because everyone feels that way sometimes, at least anyone who is single post-college in a city.

As I walked myself west while all my friends went east, I did everything I could to hold in the tears. I looked up at the full moon in disgust, cursing it for not bringing the change to my life I so desperately need. I noticed all the tall, thin, gorgeous girls in heels, laughing into the night, so different from me, the not-carefree, unhappy woman struggling down Houston. And as I walked, not making eye contact or slowing down, I saw a store called Something Special.

And I thought of all the fairytales that have undoubtedly made me rather naive. The love stories my mom would tell me, the romance I’ve craved since I knew you could crave such impossible things. I was always promised something special, something fascinating. Something that was unexpected and life-altering. Something intoxicating and breathless. Something so different from the rest.

Something worth all of this waiting.

But when that day comes, or as the cynic in me phrases it, if that day comes, who do I want to be? Do I want to be this desperate, defeated girl? Do I want to be scared and disappointed in every man and frankly, in myself? Do I want this pitiful self-confidence or this pouty attitude around my friends, my family and on this train, angrily typing this blog?

Or do I want to be someone special?

Someone who admitted her failures and yes, handled her emotions as they came, even when they came stupidly and sometimes far too soon. Someone who stood up for herself without letting herself give up in the process? Someone who lived her life instead of waiting on some man to come to build it with? Someone who wanted to cry on a Saturday night it someone who wanted to dance?

If I want something so very special, don’t I need to start believing in and acting like I’m someone special?

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Walks Through the East Village

There’s that underground jazz lounge where the first champagne cocktail is free for blue-eyed girls with bright smiles. It’s where that older Polish man with a boa gave me and my friend A a feather to wear in our hair. My friend A, who is now married, living just a handful of blocks and subway stops away from me. It’s where I became hypnotized the first time by live music – watching the pianist dance across the keys, the saxophonist breathe and move deeply and creatively calculated. It’s where I sat in a Forever 21 dress at 19 years old, pretending I was old enough to split a bottle of wine with a man I didn’t really know, but was paying. It’s where I went when I wanted to feel classier and older than what I really was, where I wasn’t the girl from North Carolina who interned at Cosmo, but I was just a woman. A woman who somehow lived in New York fucking City.

There’s that hookah bar on St. Mark’s that never carded me. I wasn’t sure if I liked hookah all of the times I went and took smaller breaths than everyone else, but I knew I liked the sugary-sweet sangria, long before I knew what good alcohol tasted like. That’s the place where there are couches in the corner, cushions on the floor, where you can sit Indian-style or extend your legs long, far across to the other side of the table. That’s where I took my friends when they visited, to show them a new-something they didn’t know about, something terribly urban (though later I realized it’s not). That’s the place where just a few days ago, I brought a guy from Williamsburg to that very corner and though I didn’t know him, my red wine haze told me to kiss him. Right there, on the first date, with hookah saturating my hair and my breath. The breath that was making his glasses and the cold window behind us steam up.

There’s that movie theater on the east side that’s a hop, skip, Metro card and jump from Brooklyn. It’s where I saw that movie with a name and plot I forget, with Mr. Possibility, summers ago. It’s where we bickered between Sprite and Diet Coke and then snuggled through the movie, his hand on my thigh, my head on his shoulder, sitting awkwardly so we could touch, even though it’s uncomfortable and definitely unromantic. There’s the cheap Thai place a few doors down where we went once the credits started rolling, where we sat in that booth in the back, with polyester seats and fluorescent lighting. It’s where we talked about the future like it was our promise, where he leaned over to me while I was tactfully slurping a noodle I could barely hold with chopstick, and kissed my forehead. It’s where he said he wanted to always take care of me. It’s where maybe somewhere, deep down in his butchered heart, he thought he could mean it.

There’s that frat-tastic bar on Third Avenue that I absolutely hated going to. But I went the night after my birthday, with a terrible cold, barely able to speak and I waited for him. His sister and brother-in-law kept me company, bought me hot tea, tried to ease my worry. M showed up when he didn’t. Until two hours later. That’s where the man I thought I could love forever made me doubt if forever existed, for the first time. That’s where my then-highly-intoxicated boyfriend decided to go home alone instead of going home to work something out with me. That’s the street where I slammed that cab door shut and he didn’t look back. Around that corner, that’s where M promised me that he was just my first New York love, not my last. There’s where I walked myself home, bitterly sober and instantly lonely, wondering if I’d ever believe her.

There’s that bookstore where I curled up with a latte and my computer, writing about love and hoping for it. There’s where I sat for a few hours on late Saturday afternoon in the most brutal days of winter, reading through a book I didn’t intend to buy (but did). There’s the travel section where I met M for a day of shopping in the West Village for my birthday, and ended up bringing home an 8-pound puppy on a Sunday night. There’s the magazine section where I looked eagerly for the tiny engagement magazine I had a print piece in when I first moved to the city, where Mr. Possibility stood at the end of the aisle, smiling at me. There’s where he whispered in my ear as we looked at my bylined spread: “I would know you apart from anyone, just by the way you move so beautifully.” There’s where I listened to Adele while avoiding the self-help section, a year later, wondering if I needed a book about getting over someone or if I could just write the book myself.

There’s the park on Avenue A that I found so terrifying, hidden behind small rooftops and appearing out of nowhere in between the graffiti buildings along the east side. There’s where I stumbled in too-tall high heels in the cold with a friend, trying to hail a cab at 3 a.m. after a night of flirting and boozing, smearing lipstick and turning heads I didn’t care to see again. There’s where I wanted to sit down so badly, just to give some relief to my tired legs, but I didn’t, even more afraid of what lurked on the Manhattan streets I was still getting used to. There’s the address where, three years later, I fell in love with a new part of town while dog sitting for a friend who just signed a lease. There’s where the park felt so different and so much more welcoming, a place for coffee and running, a place that wasn’t so haunted, after all.

There’s just one small part of my home. Just one neighborhood in all of the eccentric zip codes of this island. Just a cluster of streets before Houston, where East Village turns into the Lower East Side, where Stuyvesant Town becomes Union Square. There’s just a few memories, a few local, dates and weekends at local pubs and restaurants, bookstores and theaters, I’ve Google mapped and others I don’t need to look up to find. There’s my walks through the East Village for the past few weeks, remembering the adventures, the love, the disappointment, the fever, the dreaming I’ve experienced in the short time I’ve been able to live where the 7-year-old me always knew I would.

And there’s the older me, the quarter-life-crisis-ing me, reminding myself that if so much can happen in just under four years, so many more beautiful, surprising things are surely still to come.

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Don’t Give Up On Me, New York

Like any love affair that builds your hope while simultaneously drowning your dreams, New York City and I have recently hit a rough spot in our long-term relationship.

We’ve been serious for nearly four years now, though we’ve wildly flirted and dated off-and-on for more than a decade. It’s always had this magical, mystical aura about it, always so comfortable and yet, so unattainable, nearly close enough to capture, but far enough to feel more illusionary than realistic. Many of my memories of Manhattan, even while living and paying taxes here, have felt warm and distant, something that I know happened to me but still unbelievable, too. In ways that I could never describe in words that make any sense to anyone but to me, this city and the way it’s moved me, pushed me, challenged me and disappointed me has changed my opinions and my beliefs. I’ve loved and hated New York, every day, all day, each and every single fast-paced, sleepless second I’ve called it home.

Until this year. Until this difficult, stationary year, I felt different. Somehow, this city has felt so tainted, so tawdry, so not a place I want to live.

And I’ve not wanted to write it here, in these pages and pages of love letters not only to the men I’ve met (and loved and hated, as well), or to the friends that have made me grow into a better person with every Gchat and champagne-induced confession in the darkness of a crowded, loud bar, but to the Big Apple itself. Himself? Herself? Whatever it might be to you or to me – it’s been a place I’ve loved so fiercely it’s always felt like a part of me. A piece I’ve carried with me since I was a gap-toothed 7-year-old staring at the Statue of Liberty in total awe, in complete fascination that someone, someone like me, could live underneath her beauty.

But the ugly truth I haven’t wanted to admit has been so true: I’ve been bored in 2013.

My relationship with New York became stale. The same grocery store, the same deli. The same walk to Dunkin Donuts on the weekends where they know my order (and my dog), the same Starbucks by my work where I don’t have to say a word and have my unsweetened-grande-iced-coffee-in-a-venti cup waiting for me. The same address, the same hours at the dog park, the same bars and the same restaurants with the same meal I always order, and always love. The same loop around Central Park, the same Burger and Beer at Toast on Wednesdays for $5. The same commute, the same inverted pyramid, the same blog, the same, the same, the same, the same.

And with the routine, I’ve taken my love affair for granted. I’ve cursed it for boring me, for not giving me those things that I wanted to shake up the same-ole’, same-ole’. For not granting my every last single wish, though it’s given me more and then some. I’ve been angry that while my friends are getting married or moving in together or getting big, beautiful apartments or big, beautiful trips, or big, beautiful paychecks, I’m sitting pretty in the exact same place I was two years ago. Though I often count my blessings (for I have many, I know), I’ve found myself wondering when the next grand thing will arrive. When something — anything — will change. When New York would step up to the plate, answer my demands, give me something new to tackle, some new Mr. to love again, some new reasonably-priced apartment in a new part of town. Because if something didn’t give, if the city didn’t try again, if it didn’t woe or entice me, then I’d have no choice but to call it quits.

To pack my bags and move overseas. Or to a new city. To tell New York that it just wasn’t quite what I wanted, that I needed more, that it wasn’t meeting my needs, emotional and physical, magical and practical. That something just felt off and wrong, that the streets that once glittered with possibility, now seemed stained with the bitter boredom of convention. That because it wasn’t getting me laid or filling my heart with that love I so badly ached for, it would have to let me go. That it was totally New York and definitely not me.

But as the summer faded into fall, I felt a weight lift away, just as I was Googling ways to spend a year in Europe away from everything and everyone I worked so hard to find. I felt myself lingering more on the sidewalks, admiring what was around me, seeing the beauty that I forgot about all year long.

And I realized that it isn’t New York. It’s me.

It’s not New York’s job to keep me satisfied and happy. It’s not supposed to always give me everything I want or I wouldn’t see them for the treasures they are when I finally reach that goal, that job, that man, that warmth. That if I want change in my life, I can’t expect it to just take the train in to Grand Central and sweep me away into a whole new chapter that I haven’t written, that’s not available for eager, reading eyes, yet. Change happens so gradually, so painfully slow sometimes it can be hard to see just how much has changed already.

Like how 2013 brought me a cancer-scared with my dad, but it also made me call him way more than I used to. Or how I went from running three miles last year to my first half-marathon in October. Or how after too many tears and far too much wasted time, I peacefully slammed the door shut on Mr. Possibility, once and for all. Or how I didn’t travel as much as I would have liked, but I did book my first trip to Paris and Rome for April 2014. Or how I might not have moved apartments, but I spent a blissful 10 days in the East Village, realizing I could love another neighborhood just as much as I love the UWS. Or how I might not have met the man I’ll marry (or at least I don’t think so), but my friendships have never been stronger, more loving or more open.

Being in love and being in a relationship with anyone or even a city isn’t always easy. It comes with complications and ups-and-downs, times when you want nothing more than to scream at the top of your lungs out of mere frustration. Or times when you stop in the middle of the park after the end of a perfect run, and feel the crisp Autumn leaves fall around you, wedging themselves in your hair, and you feel at home again, after many, many months of distance. Relationships never turn out just how we picture them in our heads, when we describe them in bright colors and vivid plot lines, but they do in fact, turn into something.

Something better. Something hard and often bittersweet, but more than anything, something completely worth it. If you can just hold on, just believe, just know that after a big fight, a mild separation, you can let go of your anger (and fear), and crawl into bed or look out at the city keepin’ on below you and fall in love again. Over and over, always. To the Brooklyn Bridge to the top of the park, and back.

I know the best is yet to come, little love of mine, Manhattan. Even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Just don’t give up on me New York, my darling, and I won’t give up on you. Promise.