Sprout

What else is New York, if not a place where people come to climb. Every where you turn there are obstacles to overcome. While history has produced a great deal of pontification over the more metaphorical obstacles, I think there has not been enough discussion of the literal ones.

Stairs are my sworn enemy and they are everywhere! I used to think that it was just because I didn’t utilize stairs enough. For the first couple of years I lived a transportation lifestyle that mainly included buses, escalators, elevators, and good, old-fashioned walking. However, since moving out of Manhattan and working in one of the far corners of town it’s just subway, subway, subway. While this isn’t a problem, it does present some difficulties. 

The first thing I realized was that it was never going to get easier. I’ve spent the last two years climbing the same two sets of steps every morning, five days a week, and there is no difference in the exasperation I feel once I reach the top. About 10 steps in I am already tired and by the time I reach the top of the stairs to the elevated train platform my legs are gelatin. My heart beats faster than seems necessary for such little exertion and I find it difficult to catch my breath. Once I get on the train and reach my destination I am faced with another 40-50 steps to climb and at 7:00am it feels like a cruel punishment. And I never get used to it. I have been lighter and heavier, a smoker and a non-smoker, more consistently fit and unfit, and it doesn’t make a difference.

Aside from the annoying physical demands of climbing stairs, it is made even more difficult by the herd of people climbing the steps with you. In most places, people follow general stair etiquette that allows for a smooth and efficient flow of traffic, but not in New York. A simple rule to remember is stay to the right. So that if you are going up or down the path way is clear and everyone can continue moving easily. This is a foreign concept here. Everyone just goes wherever is most convenient for them at any given time regardless of how it may impact anyone else.

Then you have speed variations. Your slow climber/descender is not always a granny. Often it is some hipster bobbing carelessly in any direction, blinded by meteor sized-headphones and a general disgust for humanity or a couple of 30-somethings in suits typing emails on their Blackberry that, if not typed immediately, will most likely mean the end of human existence. 

And fast climbers are no better. These miniature Supermen and women need to climb seven steps in a single bound or scurry like a mice through any nook or cranny available to get to the train. The stair jumpers are often moderately athletic hippies-of-a-modern-era who are always carrying or wearing some sort of mountain climbing or backpacking paraphernalia. If they don’t fit this description, then they are most often the kind of people who think everything is a competition and that making it up the stairs two seconds faster to wait for the same train that hasn’t yet arrived somehow makes them better. 

They can continue to climb and I will continue rant. 

So, I work in the Financial Services industry. While this is certainly not my dream job, it pays the bills. I have worked for this company for over five years now and I am very thankful for the security I have had there. For the most part I really enjoy my job. I have learned a lot and I will be able to apply that knowledge to every career I have in the future. There are negative things about every job, but the most annoying element of my job has little to do with the actual work - I hate telling other people what I do. The simple question of “What do you do” almost always leads to the following:  

The minute I utter the words, I know I’m sunk. It causes animalistic reactions the likes of which I’ve never seen. All their cumulative anger over a lifetime of financial missteps, everything from their first bounced check to overdraft fees to declaring bankruptcy to the entire state of our economy, comes bubbling to the surface. Their frustrations fly out with no clear direction. Their statements lack any clear point about the topic at hand. You can feel the words formulate - thick, course, heavy words. They are hurled as if the speaker were regurgitating cinderblocks.

Sentences piece together, but just barely. They start off small - scattered, a bit wounded almost. Usually with something personal. How this bank or that bank had made their entire life crumble like Rome because they wouldn’t make their checks available immediately or charged them an overdraft fee after they knowingly used their debit card without available funds.

Then, they begin to gripe about Customer Service - the go-to complaint for anyone who doesn’t like it when they don’t get exactly what they want exactly when they want it. So basically, 98% of the New York population. At this point, their anger gets kicked up a notch. The tone is now snappy and noticeably more aggressive. It then gets more personal, but this time towards me. They begin to inform me that I don’t care about customers and that I am not here to help any one. This is news to me, but I am fully aware that this lecture is not quite over, and so I let them continue because the next part is my favorite.

After they have been sure to tell me how little I care about the whole of society, they then comment on how the Financial Services industry has completely ruined our nation. Ears purple with rage, they launch into a diatribe about how we got into this economic mess, with a speech consisting of how ever many sentences they could manage to memorize from this morning’s MSNBC broadcast. They then rattle off the names of all of the fallen or shamed financial figures that they can bring to mind, an America’s Most Wanted of Finance list, and how that is why their lives are so awful and terrifying. 

They conclude by explaining that I am not a human. I am a robot. My heart was removed at the time of receiving employment and that I couldn’t understand what it is the entire world is experiencing. They inform me that I have tons of money, no bills, and spend most of my year vacationing to tropical islands, laughing at the world’s problems.

To put a cherry on top of the whole she-bang, they also remind me that it was all my fault. I, single-handedly, am responsible for the destruction of all that they hold near and dear. I gave the economy a big boo-boo and now there was nothing I could do to fix it. 

This kind of reaction has only occurred in New York. In New York, everyone has opinions and everyone is allowed to express them, no matter how cruel, vile, or unnecessary the interjection may be. 

I stand there, unsurprised. Smiling and waiting patiently while I am told by everyone exactly who I am and why I should be sorry. No one will even give me a chance. No one will listen to the fact that I am not a big fish. I am a little fish just like them, burned by check availability and economic struggle. I am not better than any of these people. I am just trying to make my way, eventually out of Finance, into something more correctly suited to me. I don’t deserve a lashing every time you speak to me. I haven’t provoked you. The provocation has come from somewhere deep inside. Next time, please, swallow your speech and just say “Oh. Cool.” It will save us both a lot of time.  

I feel as though I need to make a few clarifications about the purpose of this blog.  

I am not one for extremes of any kind, so I am not here only to whine about how New York is the worst place anyone could ever be. There are obviously some great and amazing things to be a part of in this city. I have been a part of some of them and they have helped to make my time here bearable and at moments, extraordinary. I have had some wonderful experiences in New York and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I have laughed, sung on street corners, drank, dreamed, and seen some wonderful moments right before my very eyes. However, I have also cried on more forms of public transportation than should ever be necessary, been pushed around, yelled at, made to feel smaller than anyone ever should feel, and been completely stuck. 

This blog is about getting unstuck. Finding my path in a place already crowded with so many streets. So many people want to talk about how wonderful and amazing New York is - how it is “the great sacrifice”. Lose everything here to gain everything and anyone who can’t take it is has failed. I hate that mentality. Few people speak of the truth about New York - how harsh, unforgiving, stale, single-minded and petty it is. I am writing for anyone who hasn’t seen New York as a shining beacon of hope, high-heels, and endless fantasy spun by Sex and the City, but as a real place that can damage people just as much as it can save them.

I also hope that in discussing these ideas, I can come to find what it is I am really looking for. I am hoping to move out of New York by April of 2012. For many reasons I will have to wait until then. In the meantime, I would rather use my time here to discover some important parts of myself before I walk away. Self-discovery always leads somewhere promising and I want New York to be part of that journey. 

Along the way, I hope to turn the last 7 years of struggle into something better. In the end, I think this blog is about gratitude more than anything else. Through sorting out my frustrations, my complex over New York, I hope to be more grateful for my time here than ever before. I hope to see beauty, kindness, and patience where I have seen mostly ugliness, cruelty, and ignorance. By finding that gratitude and living in the moment in front of me, I can find my way in this complicated and intense place.

I haven’t learned much in my short time on this planet, except that what we expect is almost never what we find. In 2004, I had it all figured out. I was going to college in New York City to find everything that was rightfully mine - all the promise and happiness and perfection that I had waited so long for. There was nothing but goodness in front of me and I could finally exhale. Now my life would start. Apparently, nothing is ever that simple.

Within a week of being in New York, I knew I hated it, but I couldn’t admit it myself. Everything was difficult. All the most mundane tasks of life were transformed into obnoxiously strenuous, stressful, and trying events of epic proportions. Everyone was so important, mostly to themselves, and they never let you forget it. And there was no escape. Every where you went there were people - millions of them - and when you share a college suite with 5 girls there isn’t a lot of breathing room.

But the lack of space wasn’t the only thing suffocating me. I had somehow gotten it into my head that in this perfect new adult life, we were all going to be better. I thought that going to a liberal arts college in New York City would put me in the center of a vibrant, mature, and creative culture that so many brochures had promised me. Wrong. Being a freshman in college, especially at a liberal arts college, is like kindergarten - everyone is yelling, crying, whining, and desperately want there mommies. They are leaving messes every where, but this time there is no one following them around the pick up the pieces. Most of us were hanging on for dear life. Pretending friendships that had started two weeks prior had endured a lifetime of troubles to put together any sense of security - no matter how false or fleeting. 

While others eventually found some solid ground to stand on, I couldn’t make it work. Everyday was a struggle and I hated myself for it. I knew that New York was THE place, the only place for almost everything that mattered to anyone in any industry and if I couldn’t be here I wouldn’t have a part in any of it. 

This was not how it was suppose to happen. I was meant to be the kind of person that fit in New York and we were suppose to live happily ever after. Three questions ran around my mind everyday - what had gone wrong, how could this happen, and what the hell was I going to do now? 

With no other clear options in front of me I stayed and I have now been here for 7 years. Eventually I got comfortable enough with New York not to leave, but that has always felt insufficient. Something has never fit right and I find myself growing more jaded, angry, and lifeless with each passing day. I just can’t take it any more.

Finally, after all this time, I have given up. I let go of my childish ideology that living here was everything and realized that I was everything. A whole life is inside of me that I am not living or enjoying - that I am just watching pass by trying to make New York the right answer. The only thing I know is that there aren’t right answers, nothing is what we expect it to be, and that life is here, in front of me. I am here and there is no turning back. Either I live and discover what is really inside of me or I chase a false future in the hopes of fulfilling an impossible childhood fantasy. 

I will be 25 this year. This is the year of living. No more waiting. No more failures. It’s anywhere-but-New-York or bust. I’m here and there’s no turning back.