Well, I withstood 72 days without a New York-related cry.
I've definitely shed tears when thinking about people I miss and aspects of my job and the place I worked - but tonight was about New York. And it hurt.
It may have started this morning when I saw a TimeHop of a tweet I'd written a while ago about how much I love NYC. I felt a slight pang in my heart but I couldn't think about it for long because I had to go for a run.
A little while later in the day, I was getting ready to go out when I saw an Instagram of Tom Hanks with a You've Got Mail quote. This got me thinking of You've Got Mail. A few New York scenes passed through my mind - the shots of Manhattan in the fall... the last scene of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Riverside Park. I felt a cry rising within me: my eyes got red and full of tears and a small, quiet whimper came uncontrollably from my throat. I stifled it, however, as I had spent too long already on my make-up to ruin it.
I got into Toronto to meet a friend and I suppose it was when I surfaced from the subway, had wanted to cross the street but felt confused about if I could run across Queen St. or not.
I just don't know how to walk here. It sounds so silly and nonsensical and strange but I just feel like - I don't know how to walk here. I feel out of place. I feel like I've been away for a lifetime and people and things have gone on and now I'm back and I feel like an outsider here.
Once the sky was dark and the rain started to pour and I was in the safety of my car, I did it. I did what I (and I'm sure most people who know me) knew was inevitable. I had a big, giant I miss New York cry. I sobbed and it was probably about 30 minutes of unrelenting tears racing down my face. I miss my city.
I think that's what has been hard. Naive as it may sound, I feel like from the very first time I visited New York it felt like mine. It felt like home. I instantly knew my way around. I instantly could distinguish the various neighborhoods. I instantly loved it. It was both a naive and instinctual thought. Naive, because little did I know way back then when I was a mere tourist of all the ways I would learn, know and love the city; instinctual because I knew that I would learn and know and love the city even more than I then realized.
This crying fit could merely be the result of an adjustment period - I knew the streets in New York, I knew the way the traffic lights worked, I knew which streets headed east or west and which avenues went north or south. I knew the neighborhoods. I knew the people. I knew where to get the best slice of pizza or acai bowl and which grocery store to buy certain foods from. I knew which subway stations to avoid and the best and worst times to hail a cab. I knew the best running route through Central Park. I knew exactly how long it would take me to walk from my place to Harold Square to get my eyebrows done. I knew I'd never be disappointed by a morning view of Queensboro Bridge. I knew the kind of people I'd see all around me.
Yes, I could say that my heartache is the mere result of me making strange here in Toronto because I'm so unfamiliar and out of touch with it and that once I get to know it better, it will all be okay. But for now, I think that's untrue. I think that it's not that I was just familiar with New York - it's that I love it.
In a perfect world, my family and my best friends and I would all live in New York - I'd even settle for them living in Jersey. I could go to my parents' house whenever I'd please. I'd meet my best friend after work in midtown. I'd go for a run with my brother through Central Park (or Riverside because I picture him being an UWSer). And then I'd walk home to my apartment on the Upper East Side where my cat would be waiting for me. I wouldn't feel unsafe. I'd know the best streets to walk in order to get home. I'd take note of stores' window displays and whether I'd expect them to be changing soon. I'd stop at the bodega for some mango. I'd enjoy my walk up four floors to my apartment. There would be no tear-soaked pillow as I began to doze off.
I could sleep soundly knowing that all of the people I love most in the world would be with me in the city I love most in the world.
What a perfect world that would be.