Riding the subway, scanning my badge, taking a coffee break, listening in on a conference call... lately, the little things are catching up with me. For the past years I have consistently every night taken the time to be grateful for all the things I appreciate... my rules are easy, if I were to wake up tomorrow to find only the things I had been grateful for the day before would I be happy ? I don't know if that makes any sense, but it does to me, and it helps me realize daily what truly matters. These past few days, however, I have found it harder and harder to narrow my list... It isn't because I couldn't live without these things, but as I hurry through this fast and speedy island I can't help but smile in admiration of the experiences, scenes, and people that this world has to offer. I don't think this is simply because of my current location on a map; it is the little things...
When I was little I would play for hours in my made up desk by my grandmother's room, I would watch her fight with her adding machine and write squiggles and notes all over her desk... I would watch my cousin Lucia highlight her notes in admiration... I was weird, there's no doubt about that, but hey... I'm still weird! All these years I watched them and many more admiring them and thinking wow... they are cool! Though I soon found out that I didn't enjoy reading and highlighting as much as Lu did, I did come to the realization that I didn't mind the fights with the adding machine. As the years passed I often wondered if I grew up too fast watching them and coping them in my own desk by my grandmother's room, but today I feel like I grew up just in time and I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. This whole thing might seem like a rambling session, but I have been in awe of everything these past few days.
Some might say it is because it is all new to me and I will be sick of it in a month, but I'm not so sure. Yesterday, I met with my supervisor who shared with me a box for her business cards. It was a wooden box with a bear on it. Her mother bought her that box when she was in the seventh grade to hold the business cards she had made for herself. As I talked with my other supervisor today, we laughed over the fact that neither of us minded calling a million people on the phone or talking to a group of strangers. Later, as I sat with some of the interns in our wonderful conference room we bonded over our obsession with office supplies. All this might seem dumb, stupid, or pointless, but to me it really has meant the world. It just all fits...
My story has never been ordinary, and the past few years wether I'm in Uruguay or Mississippi I'm always the strange one (I don't mean that in a negative way) with the unique story, and I guess this is one of the reasons that I wanted to come to New York, where no two people are the same. I wanted to bond with people because they were different (just like me). I love where I live and I wouldn't trade it for the worlds, but I wanted open mindedness and diversity... and I found it, but at the same time I found a sense of peace in the city. Peace in knowing that no matter how different we all are, we are all the same. I haven't met two people that are the same in New York. But at the same time, I have found that we all have some quirky personality traits in common.... It is incredibly refreshing to meet people with whom I share NOTHING... we didn't grow up in the same place, we didn't go to the same school, we don't do the same things, we think completely differently, but still... we always have something in common. On the first day, I bonded with 2 of my roommates because we all agreed that we would drop any job to become wedding planners... I mean, what are the chances? And these kind of connections have continued to pop up through out these weeks... Its incredibly surprising and gives me more and more to be grateful for.
As I breath in every subway ride, every adventure with my intern friends as we search the 40 + floors for coffee cups, every walk through the park, every musician on the street, I can't help but smile. We live in an incredible world full of wonderful, different, and interesting people. Though some scare the mess out of me past a certain time in the day, I can't help to think about what quirky thing we would have in common if we sat down to talk.
I don't know what possessed me to write all this down, but can summarize it all in one though... I think I'm heading in the right direction. I don't know if the Big Apple is the answer, but it is helping me realize that I am making some right choices. Whether I end up here or the end of the world, there will always be someone there who is both alike and different from me, and that thought exciting!
Sorry for the babbling!!!
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