New York Reflections

To many, New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s adventure and opportunity and experiences and fun.

To me, New York is home. And it’s also somewhere I feel out of place.

To me, New York is family, love, warmth, comfort, and it’s also grief, trauma, disconnection, loneliness. It holds so much meaning and memories and emotion for me. That used to make it hard for me to go back there.

Now, I am learning to accept and welcome it all.

I am learning how to hold all the mixed emotions this place, and this life, brings me.

And I am allowing myself to create new memories there.

I am a new person now, and I can bring her with me to New York, without fear that the past me will infiltrate and take over.

So, I can go there with excitement to be with my family and friends, and grief for my past self who struggled there, and so much gratitude and hope for the me who I am now and the me I am becoming. It can all coexist.

Life is in the messy mix of it all.

It’s not black or white, this or that, one or the other - it is all of it.

New York is home and heartache, it’s love and loss, grief and growth, past and future, healing and hurt…

and I welcome it all.

A past version of me never would have even let myself entertain the idea of spending any amount of time in New YOrk than I had to to see my family. Now I’m thinking… maybe I’ll spend some more time there.

Let yourself change. Let yourself be surprised. Let yourself meet yourself anew each day. Listen to your body, your emotions, your intuition. Let that guide you over all else.

Environments bring up so much emotion and memory for us… Is there a place in your life that brings up a mix of emotions? A place where your past, present and future all intermingle? I’d love to know.