Reflections
Weird that I am getting old
This was my second summer living in New York :) I might have described last summer in the city as new, exciting, or foreign, so I found myself a little at odds with my previous experience when the first thing that I thought of after moving in was that I was over it. This was me being dramatic — I was evidently not over it and there were things that I tried and did this past summer that made living in New York still worth it — but all the more mundane things that I thought were cool and hip about New York were decidedly less so the second time around. [Washington Square Park, for example, lost much of its appeal after I witnessed people tanning on the tiny, tiny lawns less than 20 feet away from the weed smokers.]
New York doesn’t smell great either. Trash lines the sidewalks and when it rains, the garbage juices flow out into massive puddles (alternatively, really cursed soup) that won’t disappear for days. And then the tourists. I get that I still count as a tourist in this city, but Times Square is an objectively awful part of town to walk through. The density of people goes up dramatically as soon as you have a clear line of sight to the neon billboards, and if you’re trying to actually move through this area be prepared to add at least 10 minutes to your commute time.
Bad smells and Times Square, aside, I can’t really complain about the rest of the summer. This was my first truly in-person internship, and while work was definitely hard, it was also really fun. I made a lot of good friends that I hung out with and made stupid bets with both at and outside of work, ultimately resulting in a personal debt of 259 pushups (but also probably jacked arms). I went jet-skiing for the first time, a totally spontaneous but completely worth plan made at some random brunch with a couple of friends. I ate at 2-Michelin star restaurant Daniel, had some delicious food, and realized I was not cut out for fine dining. I walked around a flea market, went to a rooftop bar, visited some museums, and laid around drinking wine with my friends on a few choice Friday nights.
As I get closer and closer to graduation, I’ve been thinking a lot more about life (not to be narcissistic, but mine specifically), and things have really started putting themselves into perspective. For one, I have lower back pain; I can stand at my desk for maybe a maximum of 5 minutes before I have to lower it back down into a seated position. Mostly, however, I’ve been feeling a little in limbo lately. I have some friends continuing to grad or med school, some who are a smidge away from engagement, and some who know exactly what they want out of life. It seems like for many this period of time is a turning point in life, and the direction in which you turn seems to be quite important as well.
When I was a freshman I had a bit of a midlife crisis when I realized that life did not simply start making sense after getting into college. Things were actually going quite well at the time — I had a good externship and my grades were remarkably fine for some reason. But high school felt very formulaic to me, and college did not, hence the midlife crisis. I no longer knew what I was supposed to do, and while this seems to have resolved itself naturally in the last few years, lately I’ve been wondering if I really resolved this issue or if I just got really good at gaslighting myself.
The reason I bring said midlife crisis up is because I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have had similar experiences during these transitory periods in life, and after hearing so many stories I don’t think that this feeling can be chalked up to just fear of change. Rather, for myself at the very least, I would describe this period of time for myself as the unimaginability of the future. That is, I can obviously envision what I could be doing 1–2 years down the road, but I can’t envision what that’s like. I don’t know how I’ll feel working a full-time job and living some winters out in New York because I’ve never done it before, and my internships have hardly simulated the full experience. I’m at the point where I am learning to embrace this feeling, but I can’t say that it feels comfortable. Despite having preferences for doing thing A over thing B, sometimes I still find myself questioning what would be different if I had done thing B instead.
But alas. I’m not sure there’s a way to resolve this other than to just go and live it. After three years of college, what’s one more? I’ve got plans and goals and things I wanna do, and that’s probably the most I should ask for. This next year, I’m diversifying my human experience. We’ll see how it goes.
