Daydreaming at Night

There's always something sappily cinematic, however fleeting, about standing on your apartment rooftop at 2 A.M. I don't know if this is a phenomenon owned by New York and its steel canvas of man-made mountains, but when I'm up there with my bouncing iPod buds in my ears, staring at everybody else's lives, I feel bold. I feel important and invincible and hopeful. I feel a torrent of unwavering ownership of my city, smugly looking down at the peons walking their dogs in my kingdom. I imagine a breathtaking damsel, taken straight out of Cary Grant's clutches, nestled between my body and arm telling me she's never seen something so romantic. 

'That's right, baby, I painted the moon just for you. Now come here, doll....and kiss me.'

And then I come crashing back to reality, jarred to see the contents had shifted during flight. I look out again and it's just a vampiric city, bleeding and dead, but never asleep. 

But because of those moments, those 'I can't believe I actually live in New York' moments, I am going to miss New York. It may be a heartless bitch of a city, where millions of people are rude and self righteous and moronic, but I can't help loving it. I've formed so much of my 'adult' self in this city. I've killed countless brain cells in its bars and rooftops. I've ebulliently made love in its bedrooms and bathrooms. I've cried and cried and cried in its streets.

In a few years, I could see myself looking at New York the way I look at my first love: with appreciation, love, respect, and regret. We've shared so many unfathomably amazing and terrible moments and she helped shape me into the person I am today, more so than any person outside of my family. Coincidentally, in a roundabout cosmic joke sort of way, I wouldn't have my gorgeous daughter in my life, steering me away from destruction, if it weren't for New York City. 

Now my mind jets past itself: In two weeks, I fly for Los Angeles. I have two weeks to say goodbye to frustrating, yet incomparable, public transportation. Two weeks to close a chapter of love that was dead on arrival. Two weeks to thank a friend that gave me unending joy and support. Only two weeks to remember two and a half(!) years of life. How can I possibly do that?! Panic! Panic! Panic! 

Then I breathe. And remember however magical or impacting this period of my life has been, there will be another, different period. And another. And another, and so on and so forth. The beauty of living is that when one experience ends, there is always another around the corner. I'm not losing anything. The people and things and memories I love about my time in New York, I'll keep with me in various ways. Someday, I can pass them on to my daughter and she'll know of this insane time in my life and why New York is so important to her father. Why he associates Morningside Park with his broken heart and gaining empathy for her mother. Why a basement of a broadway theater gave him some of the greatest laughs of his lifetime. Why a Manhattan rooftop was an ideal place to socialize and an even better place to dream.

And for a reason that is just barely out of my reach, flies just over my intellectual fingers... that settles me.