Thoughts of a Humid Summer Night

Don’t you feel you want to start over sometimes? Turn back time to a few months ago? Go back in the past and make things right?
I feel like this occasionally. Today was one of the days. I was weaving through pictures from winter and spring. What hopeful visions I had then: of warmer weather, a better summer, more interaction with other people, and generally more action in my life.

Now it is already the end of July. Summer is over in a month. Unlike last year and the year before, I do not feel I have accomplished a whole lot this time around. It might have been the unusual working hours I’ve had to endure lately (more to come later) or in general being busy for a full 9 hours a day as opposed to the 8-hour-shifts I had at other jobs. Or maybe the friends who were less responsive this time then they were before. Perhaps I had also busied myself more in 2011 by actively seeking out more events and fun stuff to do. Either way, time has passed by so suddenly, it makes me gulp very hard. In order not to panic I have started writing lists over lists over lists of interesting stuff to do. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish at least half of these before the season is over.

And alas, this time I am not going home for three weeks, so September technically still belongs to my New York summer. Despite these advantages my breath shortens and my palms become sweaty. What if it’s over too soon? What if I miss out on too much? Manhattanhenge, for example, the twice-in-a-year sunset between New York skyscrapers. What beautiful shots the natural wonder would have provided for. In May, after the first chance to see it, I vowed to myself not to miss out on the second opportunity in mid-July. July 11 has long-since passed already and I am still mad at simply forgetting. And for a malfunctioning iPhone alarm.

Maybe I have also become more and more scared of the evitable change lurking in the depths of my life. It is decision-making time in many categories once again. My thoughts linger back to when I first came here and the motives that drove me. I was fresh out of college (three months post-graduation), I had no intentions in pursuing a master’s degree right away. I desperately needed a change to my life and New York brought this change upon me. But my role in bringing this change upon myself has of course been the active one. It truly is about the decisions we make in our lives that bring us to the spot we are in now. And perhaps this is what I am a little bit afraid of. Making the wrong decision, going down a wrong path.

Sometimes a slight depression overcomes me of not having accomplished enough with the resources I have at my hand. After all, I do live in New York, the city of unlimited opportunities. I am repulsed when I see locals here who’ve lived in the City for so long and take everything for granted. It might just be my foreign view of things. But I hope I will never take anything for granted in the Big Apple, will never unsee the beauty of this city.

Perhaps, lately, I have surrounded myself with too many people who have not been creative. A surprising amount of folks have a simple life here. I have never been attracted to them, I have only come to respect them. It is the artists I have started to admire, the people with an open head and dreams yet to pursue if not already in the process of pursuing. It is for these reasons I hope to stay a little while longer, in the right company, keeping my focus straight.