Grateful

Tonight was the perfect New York City night. Not too cold, not too hot, sun setting brightly, a breeze blowing warmly. From the moment I stepped out of my office onto the bustling sidewalk, I couldn't stop smiling.

I got off the train at Union Square and walked down to meet Dan for dinner. I walked through many streets I've never walked down and passed many buildings I've never been inside. I was in a very crowded NYU area and the undergrads littered the sidewalk. They smoked cigarettes and flirted, ate sandwiches and laughed, carried books and generally looked cooler than me. Their youth took me by surprise. Their academic air made me remember.

I wondered, as I walked, what I would be like if I had stayed home for college. I wondered about the girl I'd be now if my parents had had money then to send me to NYU. If I would've gotten in, if I would've succeeded, if I would've grown up at all. If I would've followed my high school boyfriend there, the way we talked about over the phone in whispered conversations at night while the rest of my house slept.

We envisioned ourselves going to class together, snuggling in a dorm, sharing meals and studying for exams. I imagined going to college in my very favorite place, in the heart of New York City, in the shelter of the Village, strolling through the parks, dining at the restaurants. It topped the list of potential schools I showed my mentor.

He was informed, intelligent and abrupt. "The undergraduate theater program at NYU is a waste of time and money. It exists to support the graduate program. You'll be lost there." I nodded slowly. I second guessed. I believed him.

Then my mother, "We can't afford it. And you can't afford to compromise yourself. If you follow him there, you'll regret it. He can live his life however he wants to and so should you. Don't let him manipulate you."

I threw out my application the next day.

I moved far away for college, eight hours away in fact, to a state school that my parents still could not afford but who dutifully paid the loan on it while I was still attending. Now I pay it all on my own. They each hugged me goodbye, standing in my small dorm room on the third floor. My father leaned down to kiss my cheek and then coughed a little as tears clouded his eyes. He quickly headed for the door, not looking back. When I saw my mother's body exit the door frame, I sobbed so hard into my pillow that I thought I would choke.

My new roommate wiped tears from her own eyes, reached out her hand and said, "We have to go meet people and we have to do it now. We can't sit here like this." So we did. We wandered the halls and awkwardly said hello and I went to sleep at night with a heavy ache in my heart that dulled a little every day. I slowly adjusted to this new place I'd never been, to a quaint little town with restaurants and libraries and a park with a waterfall and the coldest winters I'd ever known.

My boyfriend and I broke up after my first semester there. 9/11 happened and I was long gone, far away, unable to reach him for hours. As the months went on, it was increasingly difficult to reconcile my romance with him and my new life. He overcompensated and I struggled to breathe. I developed an alarming crush on a tall boy who worked at the Student Union candy counter and I called home and broke it off. I cried for four weeks straight. But I never ever went back. I tried to. But I couldn't.

The boy at the candy counter had sparkling eyes and a car and a way of chopping up a tomato that made my knees weak. When I fell into the deepest depression of my life, he was there to catch me. He made me coffee and did my laundry and tucked me into bed at night. He walked me to class, he kissed me goodbye, he was the brightest light during the darkest winter.

And now I'm back in this city, with neither him nor the other. Still struggling to find a new one or to replace an old one but men are tricky people and they are all so different. I suppose tonight, I was observing other young women make a choice of their own, to stay or to grow. Living in high-rise tiny crowded dorms, basking in the sun after class among the noise of taxis and sirens. As I walked around tonight, I marveled at their bravery and at their nonchalance.

Surely they were missing out on so much by going to school here? Or else, they were having the exact same experience as me except...backwards? An alternate college universe? City girl goes to the country? Country girls go to the city? Was there a girl sitting in her NYU apartment sobbing and breaking up with a long distance boyfriend over the phone? Very, very possible. Very, very likely. Except, she would be dumping him for some bartender in the Village as opposed to a boy working the candy counter in suburbia. But ah, very similar indeed.

Dan and I ate vegetable dumplings while a breeze swept through the restaurant. I sipped white wine and the talk was easy and effortless and fun. Afterwards, we stumbled on a bakery. And by stumbled, I mean I noticed it and dragged Dan inside it while screaming, "SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR!"

We bought a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie and walked until we found a small private alley off of 5th avenue, right above Washington Square Park. By then, the sun had set and people strolled past in the dark with lovers and dogs and doggie bags. We sat on someone's stoop and ate our dessert, my legs stretched out on the cobblestones, high heels leisurely splayed on the street.

"It sounds like the perfect New York night," my roommate said when I came home and collapsed on the couch.

"It was," I said and closed my eyes as my lips twitched into a smile, a hand on my belly, full of rice noodles and chocolate.

There are those rare times after all, when even I can admit that I did the right thing all those years ago. But most of the time, I forget that I'm a strong woman, capable of making decisions and confident enough to follow through. In the end, I'm really glad I moved away and gained a new perspective and grew up to be a girl that I like to be around. And as I come up on my third anniversary of living in New York City, I'm really really glad I came back.