I appreciate small city life. Sometimes the inconveniences of living in the city make me long for the simpleness of the life I used to live. I miss having a backyard and being able to invite people over for a cookout. I miss taking my car out for a long drive on a nice day.
But more and more I realize that I need to live in a city, or at least very near one. My dream from last night that woke me with tears. To be honest, I am still a little unsettled by the intensity of this dream and I think it is trying to tell me something.
My recent feelings of discontent and unhappiness have caused me a lot of contemplation. I am at the point where I am struggling with the decision of whether or not to stay in New York City. I go back and forth in my mind on this daily.
My dream last night found me back in school at Iowa State. I had decided to go back for another degree in a two year program. I said goodbye to everyone here and moved back to Ames. In my dream, I was ok with the idea as I packed everything up. I kept telling myself I could just move back to a city when the program finished. I was fine throughout everything that came next in the dream until it came to registering for classes. I was standing in the registrar's office at Iowa State and everything hit me. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to have to wait two years to be back in the city.
I started to have a breakdown and that was the moment I realized I was awake and crying. It took me a few minutes to calm down and completely understand that it was just a dream and not reality, but even now, I still can't forget exactly how unhappy I felt.
I love so much about home and appreciate so much about the simplicity of my life there and the pace of life, but I realize that I am definitely not ready to leave a different life at the moment for that...and I may never be. It will always hold a place in my heart, but at the moment my heart is telling me that it's not my place.
"How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. You can never go home again." - James Agee
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4 comments:
You will know when the time is right! That is what I tell my friend Sarah, too (the one who currently lives in Seattle). She just left NYC this morning after spending a week there. It sounds like she had an excellent time. She visited Wall Street, Staten Island ferry, Brooklyn Bridge & Empire State Building, had Mexican food in Times Square, saw "Chicago" on Broadway, Rockefeller Center, had Brunch at Essex, dinner at Mason-Dixon on the Lower East Side, and took a limo from the Financial District to Hells Kitchen. It's no wonder why you've stayed living there :-)
Haha, I love the fact that I haven't done half of this living here in the past year and a half. I will make sure to add them to my list of things to do when I visit NYC.
Amy! You know, I don't think it has to be one way or the other (NYC or Ames). Maybe there's something between the two that would make you happy? Some place that could provide you with the best of both worlds? For some reason I see you in... Vancouver or the northwest US?
Wow! This is really powerful! I have always been so intrigued by the meaning of dreams. I absolutely believe that they sometimes help us realize to how we feel even if we can't completely identify our feelings in a fully awake and conscious state.
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