The New York City Paradox

The New York City Paradox is this:

1 city. 8 million people. no one to talk to.

so i didn't want to say this. didn't want start out with what's wrong with New York. didn't want to crush anybody's dreams about life in the big city. but after i had been here for a month i started to think that if only...

if only someone had told me about this. if only someone had told me how lonely it can be when you're in a new place an all alone. especially a place like New York. you know it doesn't say that on any of the post cards. you never read in any travel magazine, "Come to New York City! Be lonely!" but perhaps you should. at least you'd have a heads up.

my theory for why this is true would have to just be the New York State of Mind. The NYSM is all about speed. go go go. now now now. fast fast fast. get there get there get there. everyone here walks about as fast as i can jog. a friend of mine told me once that New Yorkers weren't mean. they just needed more time to "thaw" than what i would be used to. my friend was so right. in New York people are a little wrapped up in doing their own thing. and in the city you see so many different people everyday that it is hard to even notice when you are introduced to someone new.

even it does happen to be an exceptionally chatty and inquisitive someone from the midwest.

so for the first couple of months in New York i was on my own. on my own in the big apple. or something cliche. and while it was amazing part of the time. half the time i was a bit miserable.

i will say that slowly i've started to meet people. nice people. i have friends here and it's nice. i've been to museums with friends, to dinner parties in manhattan. to nightclubs in the Meatpacking district and Soho!! being in New York finally got to be as glam as i always knew it could be.

but it took a while. much longer than i'v e been used to in the past. the last time i was new somewhere it was college. but everyone was new and that made it easier to meet people. and to go from being in a place where it felt like i was friends with or had at least met absolutly everyone on campus and in the city, to the largest city in the northern himispere and not knowing a soul was, well, shocking. i wouldn't completely call it culture shock because i'm still in my country of origin. speaking, for the most part, my native language. i would however call it culture shock on more of an intimate level.

a personal culture shock.
the difference is that culture shock happens to you as a result of everything that is happening around you. people wearing different clothes, speaking a different language, worshiping a different God. all things that happen to you on the outside. but a personal culture shock is shocking to yourself at your core. whoever i am at my core was pretty freaked out by this transition to a new place.

and while i would never trade that experience. still,

i could've used a heads up. that's all i'm saying.

consider yourself fairly warned.

Myra, what are you doing in New York?

i get that question a couple times a week on facebook.

"Myra! you're in New York City?! Since when? What are you doing there?"

people kind of can't believe it. and if i can let you in on a little secret, neither can i.
here's what happened:

i graduated from Missouri State University on December 19th, 2008. and i really only had my life planned up until that day. after that i didn't really know what would happen. i knew that i would take the spring semester off to do...you know... whatever. i had applied the month earlier for a post graduate internship in Denver, Colorado. that however did not end up happening. a separate story for a separate post.

now if i can take you even further back in time to my childhood i will. as anyone who knows me will tell you i grew up watching tv. i literally grew. up. watching. t. v. my mother tells the story of how when i was a baby she would sit me up on the couch and i would start watching the television. and how if someone changed the channel, i would cry. sick. but true. and the one thing i always remembered when watching t.v. as i got older was that all the big shows were set in New York City.

Friends. Will&Grace. The Nanny. Sienfeld. The Cosby Show.Sex and The City.The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Today Show. Lettermen. All the Woody Allen movies. everything was New York. I made up in my mind a long long long time ago that one day i would live there. where all the great t.v. lived.

So after graduation i went home for Christmas. and the rest of my life. and i distinctly remember thinking that if i was going to go off and live somewhere else for a little while that now was probably the time. and December 27 i applied for two internships in New York City. 1 of which i got.

Patricia Rojas from WHY Hunger (a hunger and poverty outreach non-for-profit) in New York City called me and asked me if i would be able to interview for the internship with her organization. she only had one question. "do you live in New York?" well needless to say at the time i did not.

she didn't want to give me the internship. for several reasons. 1.) the internship pays, but not well. definitely not enough for one person to live off of in new york city. 2.) i would have to find a place to live, also difficult. 3.) i would need a part time job in the city. hard to come by in the economy. and 4.) they have never had an intern come from so far away (Missouri is apparently far far away). Patricia pretty much told me that i could not have the internship and that i could apply again in the summer if i really thought i could handle taking care of all those things.

we got off the phone. and i remember thinking "this can't be the end." i proceeded to send Patricia emails and call her on the phone and "wear her down" as she says, until i persuaded her to give me a chance. just a chance to see if i could find a place to live and a job and get there and make this happen.

and i did. i currently live in the Bronx with my roommate Yareniz Nunez and her dog Shooby (the dachshund). as far as a job that has been a little harder to come by. i've done a series of odd things. i worked in an off off Broadway Theater working the box office, i was a political canvasser for a couple of days in Long Island, i took part in a jury selection research study at a law school, and i most currently accepted a position to do some petitioning for a city council race.

and since new york is just as expensive as everyone has always said it was i have enjoyed everything free the city has to offer. such as central park, beautiful. subway performances, indescribable. and just walking around and exploring the city i see things that i know i wouldn't see anywhere else.

so that's what i'm doing in New York. interning. and looking around.

i'm thinking

i'm thinking about going public with this.

i'm thinking.