NYC Memories….
My son is in New York right now for part of his spring break and I must say, I am jealous. Happy, as a Mom, that he is having a great experience….but wishing I were there with him. It doesn’t seem possible that I moved there, not much older than my son is now, and took on the Big Apple. As he walked around and explored the city this weekend, he sent texts and at each place I was able to immediately recall memories and pass along stories. Although he was born there, he has no recall at all of those few years he lived there as a child. However, now he will have some of his own memories and I am hoping, a taste of a different pace and life. Seems funny in a nice way that he is there, walking the same streets and riding the same buses and subways that he did as an infant- I don’t know, I just love when life brings us back around to things, people and places we think we have left forever.
Picking up and moving to NYC after I graduated from college was a huge step for me. After the excitement of jobs falling into place and what seemed to be a force pulling me in that direction, I was scared. Very scared. I never went to summer camps, never ventured too far from home and even the college I chose, DePauw, was a small and very safe cocoon. I hung up the phone one summer night in 1978 and told my Mom I was moving to New York. She was very excited but my Dad took some convincing;a lot of convincing.The fact that my first years salary as teacher combined with the position I took at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was less than the yearly rent I was to pay, could have been the source of some worry. But they let me go. They sent me on my way with the basic tools I needed, whatever furniture was in the storage room that older siblings hadn’t confiscated ( took a fold away cot for my bed, my dresser from 3rd grade that stil had bunny stickers on it, two chairs that were in my parents first apartment and exactly two knives, two forks and a few plates)and a security that I could come home anytime. Believe me, that thought crossed my mind more than few times those first two weeks! But they let me go…I know, I know, it is now that full circle I mentioned earlier.
I “let go” and my son is now in college, traveling the world, and beginning his life. My daughter is awaiting news this week of her own college experience and where that will be. I see ahead a few months and again, I will “let go”. Lots of mixed feelings to be sure. In another two years, I will have come full circle and my last child will be off to college. I will have entered another segment of my life where life itself brings you back around. My youngest wants to go to NYC for college….if that remains true, my journey of returning will truly be complete. Letting go and coming back. The one thing about change is you can always depend on it that it will happen.
I still wish I was looking at the Egyptian Wing with him, having a cannoli in Little Italy and walking through Central Park. But it is his time, his life…and I will love every single text I receive!!!!
