New York - New York

If you are thinking that this post has something to do with the Frank Sinatra's song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUrUfJW1JGk&ab_channel=LuisEduardoAndradeOjeda), then you are wrong. Here, in the two New Yorks that are mentioned, only one corresponds to New York City and another to a person whom I code-named New York. 

Anyone who knows me even a little bit, would know how much I love New York City. I have written so many blog posts about it already. You can find one such post here http://tobeastronaut.blogspot.com/2016/02/new-york-my-love.html. Please read that, before continuing onto this one. 

So, New York City. No matter how much you say about New York for how ever long a time, it still seems less and seems too short to me. It is the place where I spent almost 8 years of my life, the place I had to leave and could not go back for various reasons, the place I miss like crazy and the place where I would want to be more than anywhere else in the world. This was very true until like 7 months ago i.e. I would have done almost anything to go back to my dear beloved New York City. 

But then, during the later weeks in the month of February, it changed. I came across her. At first it was just a simple attraction, nothing major. But as days passed, it got intense. All my waking hours, I couldn't help but think about her. Right from the moment I woke up in the morning, till the moment I went to bed, she was on my mind. Could not realize what was it about her. Maybe it is her angelic looking features or her devil-may-care type of body language or maybe it is her minimalist lifestyle which I realized by observing a  certain things she used or maybe it is her relentless commitment towards a certain things (which I got know indirectly, thanks to a very close friend of mine) or maybe it is all of them. It most likely is all of them. As further more days have passed, I got to know her better. Some of the things I got to know surprised me, some made me connect a few dots and helped me understand her previous behavior at a few instances etc. All in all, I realized that she is an amazing person and my attention was well spent. That doesn't mean she didn't have a few traits that I didn't like. But these are such traits, which hurt nobody, so it was not at all a big deal. I was in way too deep without even realizing.

Now, the reason I gave her the code name New York was, even though I loved New York City so much, if it were to choose between going back to NYC or having a shot at spending a lifetime with her, I would have chosen her. Yeah sure, I didn't know her as well as I knew New York City, because as mentioned earlier, I spent almost 8 years in NYC, but I knew her only for about a month and a half and interacted with her for only exactly a month. But that didn't change the way I feel about her. When you know, you know. 

But as luck would have it, things rarely (if ever) go as you planned. Same as what happened with New York City, i.e., I had to leave and couldn't yet return in over 7 years now, I cannot be with her because of reasons that are out of my control. So, here I am, after 5 and half months since I have spoken to her, loser at love, missing someone who probably doesn't even remember my name, pouring my heart out in public like this, for what? I have no idea. Maybe it has a little bit of therapeutic effect on me or something. 

So now, the way things are, I would do my best to return to New York City sometime in the next few years and hopefully for good, because as it turns out, the person New York could never be mine. 

New York My Love

During my junior year at college (2003-04), FRIENDS introduced me to a woman, a woman whom I have heard of before but did not show much interest mostly because I thought she was out of my reach. But this time around, she fascinated me very much. My interest in her grew with every episode I watched and it grew to an extent that I decided to go meet her at the earliest. And the opportunity presented to me in the form of graduate school. I planned for my Grad school in such a way that I would be close to her if not with her and I did get into a school which let me do just that. There were a few brief hurdles in the process, like me getting very sick with Mumps the week before I was supposed to leave and almost deciding to postpone the trip and then there was the thing with my fight ticket getting to me at the very last minute (for further details refer http://tobeastronaut.blogspot.in/2005/08/finally-in-usa.html) and such. But after much awaiting I finally did get to meet her on Aug 18^th 2005. She was as amazing and beautiful as I imagined and then some. Paulo Coelho said “A City is like a capricious woman: she takes time to be seduced and reveal herself completely”. She sure did take her sweet time and even after all these years, I barely know her. She goes by many names, The Big Apple, The City that never sleeps, Gotham, The Melting Pot, The Empire City and the list goes on. She will always be just New York (no offence to the State of New York) to me.

People have asked me “what is so special about her?” or “why do you like her?” etc whenever I tell them about a certain girl I like(d). I could never really give them an answer and the same is the case with NYC. Why do I like it so much? I do not know. It could be because this is where I became truly independent for the first time or because it showed me a path towards achieving my career dream or because it has been part of many a sweet memories or because it is where I met a certain girl whom I thought to be the one (again) or because it has been with me during many hardships and helped me through them or because it helped me learn quite a few things and taught me many life lessons. There may be many such cities just like her, but all I have to say is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PTDv_szmL0.

They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and trust me when I say this, my heart is fondest for you my dear. In my ideal world I would spending today with the one and my woman. Since life doesn’t just work like that, so here I am, longing for THE CITY and wishing you all out there a very Happy Valentine’s Day.