Going on 4 Months

So I just bought my fourth metro card today.  As I come into being a "New Yorker," albeit a transplant New Yorker, the only logical way to commute is with the monthly unlimited metro card.  I've also starting using my purchase of the monthly metro card as a marker for my time spent here.  I figure I can't throw in the towel on my New York life, at least until I get full use out of my metro card.  Then another month goes by.  And with each new card, the utter lack of familiarity to everything around me in conjunction with the fear surrounding it continues to fade.

When I reflect back on my mindset when I bought my first metro card, I have to smile to myself.  I'd felt like someone had forced me come to this city, while fully aware I was the one who had done so.  There was no one else to blame.  I knew I had no choice but to move here, yet I wasn't exactly enjoying the consequences of my decision.  I was homeless, alone, disoriented, afraid and I did not like it.  I felt like the new girl at school, being kicked out of the bus onto school grounds while crying for her mommy.  For someone who has major issues with assimilating and being the "new girl," this was a big fucking problem.

So I'm not surprised I spent my first day in New York almost entirely indoors.  I didn't want to go outside, to confront the harsh reality of my new world.  I hid in my friend's apartment, beaching myself on her couch, wallowing in fear of what was to come, wishing to avoid it all for as long as possible.  I asked myself why I was there again.  By taking myself out of my comfortable and familiar domain, I came into a new self.  A needy, paralyzed by insecurity and grappled by fear self.  Yucky business.  As a severely proud human being, I was disgusted with the person I had stepped into for that initial period.  It was like a tug of war between the two ensued; completely opposite dimensions to my personality battling it out for ultimate supremacy.  The disparity between who I wanted to believe I was and who I was becoming, really tore me up inside.  Internal conflict is no easy feat.  

I understood this was all part of the process but enduring it is a whole other matter.  Who would win?  Fear or bravery?  At the time I hadn't realized bravery had already won because I was here.  I was uncomfortable and I had single handedly decided to make myself so.  And I stuck around, so far for 4 months.  

Now I understand this was the best decision I could have ever made.  It makes sense being here.  Despite all the miserable aspects to this city, the coldness, the strangeness, the rudeness, I love it.  I don't have much here, in terms of a home of my own or a career.  Never have I been more uncertain of how I would make it, or whom I would eventually become.  And yet, ironically, never have I been more happy.