buy the time …

When I went to my ten year high school reunion (a few years ago), I was ready to see girls that let themselves go and all the social hierarchy broken down.  I was greeted with the opposite; girls look the same if not better than the class photo of 1999 reflected and people still not breaking the clique ranks.  Somehow I escaped being grouped in or cast out because I had two things going for me I lost a bunch of weight and I was now a New Yorker.  Leaving Sacramento California did not happen for many of the beautiful bright group of women I attended prep school with.  It was not a high school reunion like you see on TV, with malice filled angst carried over, it was drunken catching up.  What surprised me was the astonishment and jealousy which people had for me simply because I moved to New York.  Anyone can move to New York – pack your bags and say goodbye to your money, your love of space and prepare to be stepped on or pushed.  One of my ex-classmates from all the way back to elementary school,  kept punching me, “Oh my God, I’m so jealous.  It’s like Sex in the City right, like Sex in the City?”  I’ve never earned enough in a year to own a single shoe from Jimmy Choo.  I wanted to tell her – Look the grass isn’t greener, it’s just pavement.

The difference was that she had two beautiful kids that she loved, but wished she had lived a little.  I guess that means I’m living a lot for the both of us.  I thought of this past exchange when I walked by a woman on the 123 platform in the famed Time Square 42^nd street subway stop.  This slightly blond curly haired young woman leaned against a garbage can reading a book.  There was a baby blue sign moderately decorated with colored pen that read, “Seven months pregnant, my boyfriend left me…”  There was a whole lot more written but I stopped to look at her belly for confirmation.  If she was lying she found an amazingly accurate prosthetic.  As I have become more dependent to the power of the credit card, I had little to offer in cash.  I dug deep to find a dollar clinging to crumpled receipts in my wallet.  When I went back to her to give my meager findings we had a slight hand shack in our exchange of the single George Washington, “God Bless” she said simply.  My response, “Best of luck.”  Blessings in exchange for Luck.

Surprisingly similar but not an actual picture of the woman I met.

The next day she was gone, replaced by a guy on a saxophone blowing a medley of pop songs from the 70’s that drunken foreign tourists could dance too while vaguely remembering the words.

I thought about that woman, wondered where she was and who would be there for her when she brought her bundle of love into this world.  I was there when my cousin brought her son into the world last week, so was her mom, dad, boyfriend’s mom and dad, a good friend, and her boyfriend who barely left her side.  Her child, my nephew, perfect.

Living in New York is a constant bombardment of the extremes of life.  People have kids young here too, but you also have playboys who never marry and simply date women who they are old enough to father.  I’m sure leaning against a garbage can pregnant amidst the bright lights of Broadway wasn’t a far escalated situation from where this young woman grew up.  After almost eight years of being here, this is the first year I have felt like a real New Yorker, jaded, cynical, tired – hopeful. Even though I have not chosen an easy route, I have been lucky enough to choose my route, to rest my head in a city that never sleeps and more or less make it here, which makes me feel blessed.