It’s true folks, I am officially pretending to be a New Yorker again. I’m out there, toughening up my aching feet for the city streets and endless stairs, pounding the proverbial pavement, trying my damnedest to find some sort of gainful employment. Once just wasn’t enough for me, I needed to move to the city twice in my twenties to get all that angst out.
There are many days I think this whole plan is bat shit crazy, that I was a fool to leave a job and people I love in search of…whatever it is I’m in search of, but something happened this week that gave me peace of mind as I trudge through this mucky, nasty, urine smelling NYC water. I read a letter I wrote to myself when I was leaving New York the last time, Colorado bound. I was wrapping up my year-of-service with Good Shepherd Volunteers and they made me write this letter. (Lord knows I never would have engaged in such an activity of my own free will.) GSV was supposed to send these letters to us a year later, which obviously they never did, but they handed it to me on Thursday when I stopped by for lunch.
It’s pretty short and sweet:
Oh, Melissa, Aug 1, 2009
This week you are ending a year long adventure. Right now you feel so much. But now, a year later, what is important to remember?
1) Don’t lose momentum
2) Keep going
3) You may get hurt, try anyway
4) Do what you love, regardless of your pride
5) Remember how much you’ve learned, grown and experienced…
By this point, you better have processed the year of GSV, what to do with your life and you better not be sitting on your bum waiting for anything (least of all a boy in Belize) If you want it, school, job, relationship, anything, GO DO IT.
Don’t sit around. Make it happen. Colorado is your home, but its not the whole world. Experience. Love. BE LOVE. DO IT.
GO.
Love, Melissa
____
I read it, and then I cried and cried. I cried because me two years ago would be so proud of me today…even if me today is homeless and unemployed. Me today is chasing crazy dreams and not sitting on her bum waiting for something to happen to her. Me today is LIVING every bit as much as me two years ago would have liked.
I’m proud of me. Today’s me, and every me it took to get here.
So New York, let’s do this. I’m ready. I’m bold. I’m doing it.
