An Identity Crisis in Downtown Manhattan
I exist within a constant cycle of subconscious guilt and deep breaths, the latent catholicism coursing through my veins only exacerbated as an eldest daughter. Since graduating college, my daily pursuit of perfectionism has now manifested in night terrors. No longer can I panic about GPA, so instead my sleeping brain imagines scenarios in which my family discovers that I had something to drink and I’m being sent to reform school or being kicked out of Christmas.
I’m walking down McDougall. This is the street I used to walk down when I forgot to turn on Sullivan heading home from NYU. It is a very different experience walking down this street at the age of 23 than at 21. I notice everything like a relic as opposed to a discovery. No longer are these bars unpatronized; instead, I remember the one where he told me how I could lose weight, or the one where I threw up in the bathroom, or the one where I sat alone. McDougall was hell then and remains hellish now.
Senior year of highschool, I realized that no one was going to ask me to prom unless I had a boyfriend. I had created somewhat of a femcel of myself, in morbidly unreciprocated love and completely hollowed in my pursuit for romantic validation. Once I was discarded by the boy whom I had declared the love of my life, I searched for male ownership and sunk my teeth into the perfect target. The process was monotonous and loveless.
I decided within 48 hours of dating my now boyfriend that I could spend the rest of my life with him. While that has brought with it the magic of glimpsing into the existence of eternity, it has also required a process of relinquishing some things that I never anticipated shedding. Primarily the sense that I am cosmically unlovable; but also far more practical aspects, such as the glorified self-image of spending my 20s as a spinster in a studio apartment with a cat.
This morning I held back tears while walking to American Ballet Theatre, knowing I was leaving and would have to confront the dreaded goodbye. I held back tears once again in an afternoon meeting, after being reprimanded by my boss for forces far outside of my control. Every morning I walk to ABT through Union Square Park beneath the glow of the environment clock- a clock that counts down to human destruction (https://climateclock.world/story)- and it’s supposed to be invigorating on my morning commute. All it does is make me want to throw more trash on the ground.
My therapist really got me today- almost too good- as if out of a screenplay. I sobbed as I envisioned my 10-year-old self standing in front of me. She begged me to think of something to say to her, but I was speechless presented with this being, who I had forgotten was still inside of me
I feel similarly walking below Washington Square Park, confronted with a version of self so distinct and distant, so young and yet so mature, so naïve and yet so studied. I’m hyper-aware that one day I will look back longingly on the version of myself that wrote this very entry.
I’m now returning to these musings a week later with some welcomed perspective. The doom and gloom of my frolicing in downtown Manhattan being fully behind me was mentally reframed as I went for a neighborhood run. Running is something I have historically only associated with misery and weight loss, so it came as a shock to me as my body started to crave the physical release post-breakup. Ridgewood, Queens is quite distinct from downtown Manhattan, and though I’ve lived here for over a year, I still enjoy getting lost. I turn on my Spotify curated running playlist which knows me too well, kicking off my run with high BPM Simon and Garfunkel and encouraging my final push with Drake. Obvious Child by Paul Simon plays as the sun is setting and the crisp air bitterly interacts with my perspiration.
“We had a lot of fun
We had a lot of money
We had a little son and we thought we'd call him Sonny
Sonny gets married and moves away
Sonny has a baby and bills to pay
Sonny gets sunnier
Day by day”
As Paul serenades, the angst of growing up is quelled by the reminder of expansion. Versions of self are easier to reconcile when you are amongst the population of Queens. A communion parade full of Mexican children in costume necessitates a change in route. I dash past a Black father and his young daughter, he dutifully holds the dog at his side and a camera upright to record her TikTok dance routine. I enter into Hasidic territory and keep my eyes peeled for any big black hats popping up from the sewers. So many versions of so many selves.
Paul sings:
“Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself
How it's strange that some rooms are like cages
Sonny's yearbook from high school
Is down from the shelf
And he idly thumbs through the page
Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls
Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair”
On the lyric “The cross is in the ballpark”, this is what Mr. Simon had to say:
“It got me thinking when that [idea] first popped out. ‘The cross is in the ball park.’ The first thing I thought of was Billy Graham, or the Pope, or evangelical gatherings. But I came to feel what that’s really about is the cross that we bear. The burdens that we carry are doable; they’re in the ballpark.”
The cross IS in the ballpark.
Oh, to wander beyond one’s interior walls. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
