Living Happens in the Small Moments

"I never thought I'd get here."

As high school graduation gifts for my Brother and I, my parents took us on trips over spring break of our respective senior years. In 2009, my Brother chose to take a road trip with my Dad to a White Castle in…Minnesota? (I wanna say.) I’m pretty sure it was not very Harold and Kumar-like and I’m certain there was no appearance by Neil Patrick Harris but there was a lot of driving and, if I’m remembering correctly, a bit of fishing along the way. 

Four years prior, I chose a trip to somewhere I’d been longing for for as long as I could remember, somewhere I’d never been before: New York City. Because, of course that’s what I chose.

Our flight into JFK was rocky with enough turbulence that the older woman across the aisle from us was praying urgently as we landed. My Mom and I both had a moment where we wondered if we should join her. Finally on the ground, we went to whatever transportation counter to request the shuttle to our hotel. An hour went by and it never arrived so, finally, we took a cab into the city. My Mom told me later that after all that, she was pretty ready to turn around and go home.

But we didn’t. We made it to our hotel—the Millennium Hotel in Times Square, a place that still gives me very nostalgic feelings whenever I walk by—and proceeded to have a lovely week. There were four Broadway shows, a carriage ride in Central Park, both the Met and MoMa. Phones didn’t really track steps at that point but we figured we walked miles and miles, including one day that likely clocked in at 18 miles. Honestly, it probably would have been less except that we had printed out directions from Mapquest to help us find our way. Mapquest, if you recall, is driving directions and, well, Midtown is all one way streets on a grid. It took us too long to figure out that we were walking up and down blocks when we could have picked an avenue and walked straight down it. 

Yes, we walked everywhere. No, we never got on the subway. We took a cab once, in from the airport. We took a car back out to the airport. Tourist-ing was the name of the game and we did it all including riding one of those two story red line buses down to the tip of Manhattan. 

The real purpose of our foray onto the red line bus, besides general sightseeing, was to get to the Statue of Liberty. On the bus in Times Square. Off the bus at Battery Park. On the ferry. Then, we were there. 

I can’t remember if because it was March and a little off season for everything to be open or if it was closed as a remnant of 9/11 precautions—our trip was in 2005—or if we just didn’t want to walk all those stairs but we didn’t go into any part of the Statue. (The last option seems the most likely.) Instead, we just meandered our way around the base, stopping to look out at the river or back to the city. When we got to the front, my Mom and I both stood looking up at this giant monument reaching into the sky. It was very cool. And also I was just 18 so I’m not sure I was really taking in the moment that much. At least at first. 

Then, my Mom got really quiet and still. When I noticed, I asked her if she was okay. She said, “Yes. I never thought I’d get here.”

My Mom grew up in a very small town in north-central Montana, a town that is roughly one square mile big. Her graduating class was, like, 40 people. I’m pretty sure she never got on a plane until at least after she had me but, more likely, until after she had my brother. Our trip to New York was, I believe, the first time she had been to the East Coast (mine too). When she was growing up, New York was a faraway, inaccessible place; she was sure she would never visit. And there she was. In New York. Staring up at the one of the most iconic symbols of the city. 

I started taking in the moments a bit more after that.

*

It’s nine months into my NYC decade-aversary year and it is going…it’s not really going. When I “kicked off” this tenth year, I had so many grand plans—classic places I had never visited, old favorites to talk about, restaurants to try, a tattoo to get. 

Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

When it became quite obvious that, financially, many of these places weren’t going to be possible at the moment, I put them on hold. Then, I shoved them in the closet. Then, I put them in a box in the dark basement telling myself that I would pull them out and look at them again when I could. 

Did I believe that then? Do I believe that now? I don’t know. 

True, not every plan requires dollars to make it happen. Some do. Or, in general, money just usually helps. Well, it makes many plans easier to achieve. And many parts of life. Not having them also functions as a great excuse to not find alternative routes to something, to put a whole life on hold, to distance yourself from putting yourself out there. 

By October of last year, around when I got COVID, everything started to seem hazy and impossible. So, I settled into the haze. It made much more sense to me, at that point, to occupy a nebulous space, continuing to follow a schedule and manage a job hunt in the same old way, because that was the only thing that seemed possible. It wasn’t the best use of my time, probably, but you know, it was doing something. I was still doing something. Just not anything that was serving me.

My NYC decade-aversary was always in the back of my head, as more of a looming deadline than anything else. The days came and went at a snail’s pace while the weeks flew by. Decent things would happen here and there, but I wasn’t doing a good job holding onto them. Most of the time, I stopped taking in the moments. 

*

“I never thought I’d get here.” 

That’s a thought I’ve had myself a lot over the last ten years. Well, it started as “I don’t think I’ll ever get there” during undergrad when I was trying to figure out what came next in the face of my dreams being squashed. It was around that time I also stopped making long term plans. Choosing, instead, to approach everything as it came as much as I could. Anxiety only lets you get away with that so much but I did my best. (You don’t own me, Anxiety. …no one talk to Depression though, okay?) What that has meant, basically, is that I’ve done a bunch of things without much of a plan in place. I decided to move to Seattle after undergrad because there was an opportunity. I decided to move to New York for much the same reason. I've written about it more in depth before so I’ll spare you the rehash of the whole saga now.  

Now Tourists Come and Stare at Me

The important thing to note for today’s newsletter, I suppose, is the origin of the echoes of “I never thought I’d get here” started only a few years after that moment in New York with my Mom. A moment that I realized, even as an 18 year old, was pretty profound.

Ultimately New York is just a city, another place you can live. It’s mythic in some ways. It’s hyped. It’s the “center” of so many things. It has a distinct personality and quirks. So many quirks. But, so does everywhere. Different quirks, of course. Maybe quirks that make living a little less difficult. But quirks none the less. Those places where some people just live are other people’s homes. Everyone is searching for whatever their version of home is, I believe. 

When I was 18, my very narrow experience of New York is what I thought my version of home was. By the time I was 20, that was a distant dream. Now, at 37, I’m ten years in here.

*

I’m not often a “romanticize your life” sort of person. Not for any particular reason necessarily. It could be because of the amount of people I’ve seen masterbating on the street. Or the hot garbage smell that is on its way to us with the summer heat. Who knows? Well, most likely its the pragmatist in me who keeps those lofty feelings at bay. 

As much as New York is just another city, there are also things about its mythic quality that make some normal things feel imaginary. Not the big things like seeing a celebrity on the street or whatever weird thing Eric Adams decided to do about rats this week. To me, it's the small things. The regular things. The everyday things.

My therapist and I were talking about that this week, about how things like raising children in New York seem imaginary even though she’s doing it herself. Even though I also know people who are also gorgeously raising wonderful little ones here. There are three schools within like four blocks of my apartment and I still can’t believe that children go to school here. It’s gotta be imaginary! But it’s real. Because, you know, it’s a place where people live. 

I feel this way about weddings in New York as well. They happen all the time. Lots of people get married here in ceremonies big and small. Celebrities and neighbors and your friends, they all get married here. And yet, this regular, everyday sort of thing often feels like it’s the ending to some sort of big budget romcom. Which, honestly, being a guest at a wedding at the end of 90s style New York-based Meg Ryan romcom? I’d be into it. Actually, I’m into being a wedding guest in general. I think it’s really special and brave to declare your love in such a way. The world is so *insert some wild gesture here* and being reminded that there are good things happening simultaneously with the horrors is something we could all use more of. 

Yesterday evening, I was lucky enough to get such a reminder—a wedding reception for good friends surrounded by good friends. At some points it felt so magical and at other points it felt like such a regular thing it was almost laughable. In my head, I go to other places to go to weddings. But no, this group of people were together in this place I live and I felt such joy to be included.

The wedding reception was on the Upper West Side, not far from Columbia. So, actually, there was a bit of a weird internal juxtaposition thing going on for me. We were in a restaurant not too far from a bar I used to go to with classmates after class. This was an area I spent so much time in and now, am rarely even close to except to pass by on the way to other places. According to google photos, I graduated from Columbia eight years ago yesterday (5/18). A very different version of Samantha made her home in this part of the city. If I looked up the street for too long, I could see her ghost. It was not a bad feeling. Just another echo of something. 

It was that juxtaposition—of my current self visiting a former self—that created a perfect moment to “romanticize my life.” As I left the bar, reached the end of the street, and turned left to go to the subway, it was raining a bit and New York, I Love You by LCD Soundsystem came on my shuffle. (Now, if that’s not a cliché, I don’t know what is.) I was feeling buoyed by the evening, by the tangible evidence that I have actually made my life here for the last decade. With all the changes in the last few years, the way relationships have kindled, grown, burned out, or disappeared, it has been hard for me to feel like I had a foothold with a group of people here. And there it was, I had just left an evening with part of my community in the city, people who have been instrumental for me and mean a ton to me. It was all real. It feels kind of silly to say but that’s when a little smile broke across my face. Last night was just a nice night.

This silly romantic feeling, despite the several glasses of wine I’d had, brought something into focus for me—it doesn’t matter if I make it to one single big deal item on my list for the year. It’s all these little moments that bring color to my NYC decade-aversary. All the times when it feels magical and awful and hard and lovely and, most importantly, like my real life. And maybe it’s more about sharing those moments than “cool” activities on some sort of high octane bucket list. It’s really those moments that make up it all in the end. 

I do still want that tattoo though. 

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Maybe you feel this way after all the sentimentality in this edition of the newsletter?

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