-John Updike
I live a double life. I am a born and bred Jersey girl, I date a Jersey boy, I spend my summers "down the shore"- where I sometimes even fist pump. However, as my sixth year of living in NYC approaches I find myself feeling more and more at home in its streets and am slowly shedding the layer of that other state.
A few days ago I was laying in my bed in my cozy (the NYC word for small) studio on the phone with a friend from Jersey and when they asked me where I was I said "home"- in the past I would've answered "my apartment" but now, it is simply home.
As I discussed in my first post, I love movies-- I love feeling connected to a characters thoughts and words. It makes me feel less alone when someone else adequately, more adequately than I usually can, describes a feeling or experience I relate to. In the movie Garden State Zach Braff's character, Andrew Largeman, says "You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore?" That was a point in my life I was dreading, actually. However- now that I am there it brings a sense of accomplishment and pride. I have created a life for myself, a home, a place where I belong and love and want to stay. I will always have that New Jersey connection, I will always say "159" when people ask what exit I live off of the Parkway (and they do...), but to move back would not be returning home but rather leaving home.
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