Concrete Jungle

25Feb10

5 years ago at the awkward age of 15 I set off on a journey that would open my eyes to a new world. A world where dreams are made of and there’s literally nothing you can’t do. I an my friends set off at about 1pm on a Thursday afternoon (if i remember correctly) and drove 24 straight hours through the night and arrived just in time to step out into a darkness shed light in every direction. The place that i’m referring to is the one and only New York City. We stood right in the midst of Manhattan awe struck looking up at “all of the pretty lights” and from that moment on my view of life changed. It was like a drug, I couldn’t get enough of it. We stayed one week, trying to fill our eyes with every sight, our mouths with every delicious food, and our minds with every dream about one day coming back. That one day ended up coming just one year later. Now this was with our High School Television Production crew but every year no matter what else was going on in my life, the annual NYC trip was also sitting in the back of my mind with a countdown for the number of days until we left again. I started calling it home, now of course it was a home that I very rarely got to “come home to” but there was something about the place that drew me in, day after day, year by year. After going three years in a row, me and the friends who joined me on this trip over the years graduated and then there was no more school planned trip to “The Big Apple”. So, we decided to plan our own, but not only going in the midst of the cool month of April, we wanted something more. Then we thought, let’s go big. So we decided that we would travel “home” for the biggest party in the world. New Year’s in Times Square. After months of planning we packed our bags, drove to Jacksonville Florida and boarded a plane. It was the most amazing, fun, freeing feeling of my life. At the time I had saved enough money to go up there and not care about money. It was free reign, all day, every day. No budget, no chaperon’s, no parents. We had it made, we endured the cold day/night of new year’s eve and stood with literally millions in -16º weather in times square for 12 hours waiting for the ball to drop. But the day ended up coming to go home. That was 417 days ago today and like I said, NYC is like a drug to me, and i’m having major withdraws. I have to get back there soon or else i’m going to end up leaving in the middle of the night with a backpack full of clothes on my back and walk there without anyone knowing i’m gone. Let me tell you, if you haven’t ever been to New York, go. It will blow your mind. Go into time square at night (yea it is lame after 20 times of seeing it, but the first time is amazing), go watch the sunset over New Jersey on top of the Empire State Building, take a stroll with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife through Central Park (it will be a walk you will wish you could make everyday). Everybody needs to go see the Statues of Liberty, and Rockefeller Plaza, and jump and scream and try and get on The Morning Show. NYC is endless, there’s always going on. There a pulse that you can feel under the streets that you can’t find anywhere else. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys just recently released a song called Empire State of Mind and and they word it perfectly. It really is conrete jungle where dreams are made of. So, who wants to go to New York?