I’ve been in NYC and the surrounding areas for exactly one month.

As I walk around, or stare out of the windows of the subway, I can’t help but compare this city to the one I left behind.  The woman that I’m living with told me that she’s been living in her apartment for 30 years.  I can’t even begin to imagine myself living in an apartment that long.  But then I think that maybe here, that’s not that unusual.  Maybe a lot of people in this city have spent most of their lives in apartments.  I don’t know.  I haven’t met that many people yet.

Where I come from, it’s just a different environment.  Downtown Denver is a city, but not as big as NYC.  There are a lot of houses in the city.  People live in houses near the zoo, the museums, and the sports stadiums.  I’ve never known anyone until now who has lived in an apartment for so long.  Denver has buses and light rail but where I lived, I hardly ever rode the bus because it only came once every hour.  There are a lot of drivers on the road in Denver. And the casinos are only about 45 minutes away in the mountains.  Yes.  The mountains are that close.  Life really is different here.  Until I moved, I never walked to the grocery store.  I never had to carry all my bags home.  I’ve never heard a trash truck outside of my window at 1:30 in the morning.  I’ve never really lived in a city.

I told myself a long time ago that I wanted to move every five years.  I started that plan kind of late but I did come to NYC to experience something new.  Now that I’m here, I’m really taking everything in.  I’m asking myself what it is that I want from this experience.  I know I’ve only been here a month but I will confess that I probably won’t become a permanent, long-time resident.  My grad school program lasts two years, and there’s still so much of this country that I want to see.

I really like NYC and I believe that every person should live in a different state for a while—just to see what else is out there.  Until I moved here, I thought of everything in terms of Colorado suburban life.  I’ve thought of everything in terms of large houses, huge apartments with patios (at one time I thought they were too expensive!), and lots of pet-friendly housing.  I’m enjoying my new life but I miss some of the old. I miss driving when it was time to shop.  I don’t do much shopping at all now because I don’t want to try and carry that stuff home and I don’t want to pay for a taxi either.  But then, this city offers so much.  There are so many opportunities for people in the creative arts here.  I wouldn’t find anything like that back home.

I want to see as much of this city as I possibly can.  I want to take away as much from this experience as I possibly can.  I want to make lifelong friends.  So far, the people I’ve met have been really nice.  I’m enjoying all of my classes and my professors are great.  I believe I made the right choice in coming here.  If I hadn’t, then I would’ve missed out on a whole different world.  Who knows what will come of this?  I still dream of seeing more.  This was the first step in making that dream come true.