finding home

so i’m back from my holiday travels to Rhode Island. i was there for just over a week and it’s hard to believe i am already back. i got lots of rest, ate lots of food and got to spend time with those that mean the most to me. my only regret was the speed at which this time passed.

and when it was time to return to this city, my city of dreams and hopes and envisioned grandeur i found (and frighteningly so) that i wasn’t quite as hungry to return as i usually am. that said, i feel like i should just chalk it all up to a bad couple months, a turbulent time in my social life and a day job i despise more than i realized.

so that leads me to needing to take action and thinking positive. i’ve already revised the resume and the job hunt will commence starting tomorrow. i have an incredible trip to London coming up in early Feb. and as it stands right now, i might actually have a lovely time planned for new year’s eve tonight. that’s it for now. but the year of positive thinking has commenced.

and now on to another topic…the road not traveled.

something i can’t help thinking about – so the only solution is to blog it and get it out of my system. while i was in ri, i had the joy of hanging out with an old friend (well a couple old friends on various days), visiting some old haunts, passing places i lived, loved and now realize, took for granted. i passed the very window 10+ years ago that i used to look out of and dream of something bigger and better. the dream of new york city, of acting, of getting out of a “crummy little dead end state”…and as i approach 40 faster than i want, i thought about how now i sit in my studio apartment in nyc looking back fondly on simpler days, simpler times, simpler relationships and dare i say, and i don’t mean it with insult, simpler people. i think about the path not taken and the path i have taken. perhaps it’s just the grass is always greener syndrome?

i don’t mean to sound defeated by this city, because i can clearly hear that theme in today’s blog. and i have faith that my passion for building a life here will return to me in the coming months. it’s just there has been a pile up of hard city overload. from my job, to my relationships, to my day to day living. it all took a toll and that’s why the retreat to my home in RI was such a grace saver.

i got a chance to remember who i was before i got here. before i got into a tragic marriage and it’s tragic demise. before i was exposed to the dark side of a city i never knew before. before i learned that living alone in New York City is not all it’s cracked up to be.

while i was away, i got a chance to, just briefly, feel 19 again. and it was wonderful. because i got to be me, albeit a better, wiser, more confident version of myself – only with all the free & happy joy of a 19 year old girl, hanging out and being silly and having a chance to forget the agony that (more times than not) has been my life the past ten years.

i wonder about that road not taken, i wonder if i had stayed in ri…would i have been instead knocked up with two kids in a house two sizes to0 small and dinner on sundays with inlaws and washing socks and trips to disney and crying in the dish soap and having the expected once a week sex session with an overworked and tired husband…and all the while, when i could steal a quiet moment, would i have spent it wondering about the path not taken. the path, the dream of nyc, of acting, writing, being alive in a way that i would envision was more alive than the domestic “bliss” i had chosen as my path?

and as i sit here, i wonder which is worse and i wonder which would or could’ve been better.

i wonder if it’s ever too late to redirect, if it’s possible to have both, if it’s possible to live your life in two places, in two ways. to merge the 19 yr old i rediscovered in myself this week with the 38 yr manhattan-city-slick-artsy-type-bohemia-dweller. i wonder if that’s possible.

because i am a firm believer, nothing is impossible.

happy new year…