# 6 There are days....

365 Blog Challenge, Post #6

Having lived in NY for almost 5 years, I've had many people tell me how envious they are that I live in Manhattan, how exciting it must be, never a dull moment.  To be honest, Manhattan is great.  There is an energy and a vibe here that I know I would miss should we ever choose to leave.  However, there are days....

There are days, like today, when being surrounded by thousands of people at any given minute and not having your own space wears on you.  Maybe you're having a bad day, maybe you've just gotten bad news or maybe a bad mood just swooped down out of nowhere and enveloped you.  All you want is to be alone or with your loved one at home.  But it's three in the afternoon.  Taking a cab home from the east side to Washington Heights would be a slow, financial nightmare. You could take the M86 across down and catch the 1 train, but then you'd have to walk the seven minutes home and how your body already hurts from hours and days of being on your feet.  Maybe, you say to yourself, you'll catch the 4 train up to Yankee Stadium and catch the Bx6 bus.  That brings you right outside your apartment building.  You'll even have time to read your book.  You get on the 4 and thankfully you get a seat only to realize you don't understand why the author of this book has dragged this dead girl's history into the story when the book would suffice as a memoir, and it's downright depressing either way.  Then, after boarding the Bx6, you're sitting next to an irritatingly loud couple, trying to read the book you don't like in the first place and feeling your sorrow start to swell in your gut.  You think back to the days of your car, however unimpressive it was, the solace of an empty interior.  The radio playing terrible music that at least you could belt to in privacy, and wallow in your mood.  You miss being able to walk outside without stepping on the heels of hundreds of slow walkers who walk four-across on the sidewalk (which should be illegal anyways).  And you miss going home to a place, a building, a locale, where you alone live with your loved ones.  Instead you're surrounded by more strangers in more apartments, stacked on top of on another, where you hear your neighbors pounding above you despite the fact that they started their construction project over a year ago.  You look across the river at New Jersey and you think life is probably easier over there, easier than being confined to this island with millions of people from all walks of life, some who have no consideration for other people's space and others who have so much consideration (or self-involvement) that they hide in a shell and are unfriendly and closed off and couldn't give you a smile to save their over-priced designer shoes.  

Yes.  There are days like this.  Not many.  But they're there.  They are to be expected.  And then your husband comes in and kisses you on the cheek and you remember that things are OK.  And things will look brighter tomorrow, be more exhilarating, more fresh.  And you sit down and enjoy your solace, as you know it will be interrupted the moment you walk out your apartment door.