This city girl is ready to fly back South

“ I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are just too bright… and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice, but still, the place you live is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone.” - Red – Shawshank Redemption -

I got that seven year itch I guess… so after seven years this little bird is finally flying south. Yes that’s is right, I have made the choice to move away from my second home, and back to the state of Georgia at the beginning of July…

New York caught my eye from an early age. And several years ago, when my parents moved from the house I grew up in in Atlanta they asked me to help them sift and rummage through all my old things. I uncovered a Lisa Frank journal from forth grade. In it’s pages I found an entry I’d written about how someday I was going to live in New York. I’d never even visited the big apple until I was nineteen. How I knew I would fall in love with and live in New York someday, I don’t know, but something inside of me always knew I was a little different. Not that you have to be different to live in New York, but you surely, in my opinion, have to have strength of character to stay here past a certain amount of years.

When I was nineteen I went out on a limb and flew to New York on my own. I had friends in Wayne NJ who showed me around for a couple of days. I remember my first experience, eating at an Olive Garden in Times Square. I couldn’t tell you what I was wearing, or what I ate. What I could tell you is how I was purely mesmerized, like all the redneck tourists who stop in the middle of a packed street, looking up at the tall buildings with their mouths wide open, waiting for some cranky New Yorker to bump into them, and shout “What the hell are you doing!” But there I was, staring out the plate glass walls of the Olive Garden, mouth gaping, eyes wide, studying all the lights, marketing and billboards for Broadway musicals and Revlon make-up.

While my first trip to New York didn’t prove fruitful, and I wound up completely broke, I was determined that I would return.

Two years later I moved up to New York to finish my undergrad, and once again ran into some complications, but I managed and survived. Working full and part time while in school, taking internships while working and taking classes in the summers. It was a labor of love. I never thought I would be here this long, I figured I would stay maybe two years at best out of school, and move. In fact when I graduated I almost decided that the best thing for me to do would be to move back home with my folks. However, my parents encouraged me to stay on, and I ended up getting work as a nanny, which sustained me for a long time while I pursued my dreams as an artist. And I believe I had a pretty good run of shows, and a lot of fun doing it.

Being a girl with an itchy foot hasn’t always been easy. Marching to the tune of my own drum hasn’t always been easy either, but New York was the first place in my whole life that made me feel grounded, and full of an electric energy at the same time. It allowed me the chance to be myself. Unlike some college towns (full of townies and drunks, no offense), there is a freedom that New York provided for me while in school. A feeling of maturity washes over you, and you are submerged in culture, function, and movement. It is the one place where you will be among more people than you could have ever imagined, but yet the only place where you feel overwhelmingly lonely at the same time. And the only place where you are left to your own devices. But at the same time you never have to go out and wonder if you will have a good time, because good times are around every corner. Every once in a while I will walk around, feel the wind around my neck, look up at the buildings and say, I did it, I lived here, worked here, showed my art here, and now I am ready to leave here. And proudly understand those words that Frank sang so long ago.

I have met some pretty amazing people in my life, but New York is where I made some of my closest and lifelong friends. Who support, love, enjoy, create and invite me to be part of their ever changing lives.

But I suppose around last summer I began to think about my life, what I want, and started formulating images in my head of a completely different life. Not one without my art, but one that added a little bit more to the picture of my life. I started with a canvas in my head, wanting originally to be closer to my parents. I saw my life, but couldn’t imagine continuing and not being able to see them more often as they got older.

Then thoughts drifted through my mind of having someone, again. But I realized I didn’t really want to start a relationship in the City, and I didn’t want to just start something serious with just anyone. I contemplated and even tried longer distance relations, but realized I was settling for people I only felt mediocre about, or unsure of. After a while I completely gave up on the idea, that I would really find my souls equal. And eventually I was alright with that, because the canvas showed me that I was finally one and whole within myself, and that I love myself enough that I was willing to be happy by myself. I sincerely stopped caring about finding a solid relationship, and I stopped looking. Figuring I could just deal with the whatever and me.

Then I started to realize all the cities glitter only shines when you are happy. And if happiness is a state of mind, and not a state of place, I knew that I could be happy anywhere, and began to contemplate my life outside of the concrete and busy streets. The beauty of being an artist, and something which took me ages to figure out, is that as an artist you can go anywhere, and still do what you love…

So, not too long ago, something I wasn’t expecting happened, someone that infused my life with new meaning, and new goals and inspirations… I used to think love was a test of time, that only time would prove a persons honesty and devotion. Well I have learned that this is not always the case, that each case is in fact very unique. After talking to my friend Mikalee for a while, we talked about how no one will ever know your relationship; no one can judge or even guess how important it is to you. Every case is different, each relationship is different, has a different story, started with a different set of circumstances, and that no one will ever understand your bond, but you and that person you are bonded with.

I found an instant emotional syncopation with Jason, and so I realized this is it, the final key, the final door, I didn’t know something could be this instant, this amazing, but it is, and now all the arrows I saw are coming together and drawing a line within the canvas that connects all the thoughts that I knew to be true, and right. It is time for me to be closer to the love of my life, and to be closer to my family who I cherish, and time for me to discover true and meaningful success. I can’t wait to share my life, my art, my ups and my downs in a familiar place with a lot of new starts, new stories and a totally new adventure that I pray will last a lifetime.

I can’t wait to someday write down all the stories, and dramadies about my life in New York. For me it’s the end of an era, and I have discovered so much more about myself, I found true inner happiness, and what it means to be and live in the here and now. Without all the trains, walking and talking I would not be the confident girl I see in the mirror. The girl who speaks her mind, and thinks outside and around the box. Who will continue to follow her true instinct. New York has been my home, and nothing can ever replace my feelings and memories and strong love/hate relationship I have with this city of lights.

One thing I am not going to let happen this time around however, is that I am NOT going to lose touch with the amazing people I have met, and the great friends I have grown close to. I regret very often losing touch with a lot of people after I left for college, and I will never let that happen again.

I will leave you with this last quote from Shawshank: There are things in this world not carved out of grey stone. That there is a small place inside of us they can never lock away, and that place is called hope.” Like the sunscreen song says, leave before NYC makes you hard, well I still have hope, I am harder than I used to be, that’s to be true, but I am still very sensitive in spots, and I’d like to stay that way. The only way I have managed to keep most of my sanity is because of my friends here in the city. But I will say this much, most of them were born and raised here, there families are here, their loves are here, my family and my love are away from here, and that is where I feel I want and need to be.