New York City – the place I have wanted for an uncertain amount of time that somehow feels like forever. I know I haven’t; I know I didn’t come out of the womb craving the island of Manhattan in a way that made it so nowhere else would suffice. But I’ve never been able to come up with the exact moment this obsession started. Perhaps I lived here in a past life, the essence of my former self still drawing me to the bustling streets and bright lights.
The beginning doesn’t matter much though, because no matter where this all started, it still got me here. I feel like an imposter most days amongst my classmates who’ve held academic dreams of The New School for the school itself, whereas I chose this school for the city that it’s in. The city was the most important part, with the rest of it fading only to background noise. Everyone around me comes off as so sure of their paths, so definite in their choices and confident in their place in this school setting. I know this can’t possibly be true; I’m sure plenty feel just as lost as I do. I’ve never been definite about anything besides New York. I assumed I would get here and feel complete. As it turns out, the city is just a more interesting place in which to consider what exactly it is I’m missing that’s making me feel incomplete.
Though I’d said before that I’ve never been able to determine what first made me obsessed with this place, there is a partially put together timeline of my New York story. The very first instance of my interest being piqued is still lost somewhere in my memory, but there is something early on in the timeline that greatly influenced the rest of the events after it.
The dream was to be Holly Golightly.
That in itself should’ve tipped me off to the potential for disaster.
Holly Golightly, or rather Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, is a symbol, an icon. She’s beautiful, young, lives in the greatest city in the world. She eats pastries while strolling down Fifth Avenue in an evening gown and tiara. She’s someone you want to be, a quintessential idea of beauty, and an iconic image imprinted, even if sometimes subtly, on everything good about New York.
I wanted to be her. I still do, to an extent. But it wasn’t even the glamorous parts that I wanted. The tiara, the evening gown, the long cigarette holder, claw foot tub turned couch – all parts I would definitely not turn down, but none of them were the main attraction.
What I really wanted was the hidden loneliness, the floaty way about things, the ingenuine attachments to others, the air of mystery, the cat named Cat, the barren apartment. A friend who gets to know the real Holly, gets to see through the veil, sees the destructiveness, judges whether she really is as wonderful as everyone assumes. I wanted to be the one that got away. Idealized like the walk to Tiffany’s in evening wear. Idealized like the city itself. A symbol for something beautiful.
I want to be Holly Golightly because I am afraid of being permanent, afraid of being real. I am terrified of commitment, of letting down walls, letting others in. And you can find ways to avoid all of those things anywhere, but only in New York can you do so as Holly Golightly. Here you can be lonely and terrified and empty without anyone being the wiser. In a city of millions, you can skirt by people’s view, only remembered distantly as a woman passing by wearing a long black dress in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
A New Yorker. Flash in the pan of someone else’s experience. Nothing more than an image, a figure passing by in the out-of-focus background of an impromptu photograph taken on Fifth Avenue. Remembered as nothing more than brief and two-dimensional in the minds of those whose paths you cross. Here you can be a character because, if you play your cards right, no one will have to see you as real.
In many ways, that is the reason I chose this place. The reason the city has been such a calling for me is because, in a somewhat ironic way for a place of eight and a half million people, it doesn’t require me to break my streak of isolation. You can walk around without seeing a familiar face, and on ideal days no one will even bother you. It is so simple to fade into the crowd here. Simultaneously, you hold the power to leave lasting impressions on others without any form of socialization if you’d like. That is what my real goal has been. And somehow, despite the fact that Holly Golightly’s life is so obviously not as glamorous as it appears to be, I thought it would be different for me. I did not anticipate it to feel so empty.
In this emptiness I have been forced into constant self-reflection. Everyday I am questioning what I am doing here, why I allowed a movie to so strongly influence my future decisions. Why I wanted this so badly, focused on it so intensely for so long, and yet feel so uncertain now that I am here. I first began writing this during orientation week, a good three weeks ago now, and things have changed since then. I am less homesick; in fact, I actually feel more comfortable over all. I haven’t made a single friend besides the people I’m living with, but in all honestly I am fine with that. My dream of Holly Golightly has so much to do with my concern over how others perceive me. In these past three weeks I have learned how to let go of those concerns. New York is a place where you can fade into the crowd, and in many ways that becomes a good thing. The more time I have spent alone here, the more I have realized that the world isn’t as concerned with me as I think it is.
I don’t need to be the mysterious woman to catch someone’s interest. None of us do. We don’t need to handpick the information we withhold and put forth, and we don’t need to leave anyone thinking about us after we’re gone. The idea of the elusive and strange woman does not need to be the ultimate goal… but that doesn’t mean we can never indulge in it. Maybe one day I will take that walk to Tiffany’s in an evening gown, but if I do, it won’t be for anyone else’s enjoyment besides my own.