When you’re young, you see big jobs, big activities, and big places on TV. You watch Andrea become cool in The Devil Wears Prada, you see Hannah Montana singing on stage, watch a million different kinds of media set in several big cities, and see your favorite characters accomplish your dream; dance, sing, write, be. You grow up, and, sadly, the spectating doesn’t end. Worse, you’re more aware of all these things, all these dreams that have somehow woven themselves from the TV into your very core. You want to dance, sing, write, but no, not here at your little corner street in the small island of Puerto Rico, no. You want it big too, you want to experience the ferry in Seattle, the downtown life of Chicago, to lose yourself in the subways of New York City.
Suddenly, you’re growing up and you have this desperate desire to live. It’s almost greedy to want something different, something more, while surrounded by so many things — because there is no doubt that Puerto Rico is beautiful and full of possibilities. You blink and you’re made of want, of yearning. You graduate high school and think, I have seen nothing of the world beyond the shores that surround me, and it’s momentarily suffocating; only water surrounds you, but you feel as if it were nothing but walls hindering the idea of more.
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Then life continues, university, work, assignments, think of your future, someone screams. And again, university, work, assignments. You look at your calendar and realize that, in preparing for your future there’s no space for your present. Cliche, isn’t it? But my Google calendar would serve as perfect evidence. God, did I want greatness for my future, but the cost of it quickly became my present, my time, my motivation to have fun, to live a little. I had forgotten that, while growing up, I’ve been seeing all these characters, all these possibilities — I was seeing the world through a screen and I had wanted to conquer it.
Greedy? Probably. But it didn’t matter, because somewhere along the way, conquering my dreams was forgotten. It took time for it to really sink in, for the panic to shake me and make me think about what I really wanted. I was quickly back there, wanting, and the idea of missing out was painful. The reminder that I could push myself to want and do more was exhilarating. So, I booked a solo trip to New York.
What was New York, a place so highly televised, so vividly romanticized, like for a young woman from Puerto Rico? Surely, I was not the first, definitely not the last, but for me the entire trip was like a breath of fresh air. It was the stardust remnants of a young girl’s dreams. It seemed so impossible at one point, I used to see all these people going there, see aesthetic pictures, tall buildings, busy streets, and of course, the Statue of Liberty. It all seemed so far away that even when I made the crazy decision to use some of my savings to go, let alone go alone, I still didn’t believe it. My tickets were booked and a stay planned, yet I still couldn’t believe it.
New York, for a young woman from Puerto Rico, was a world of its own. I won’t sit here and downplay the beautiful and amazing diversity to be found in Puerto Rico, but it’s different out there. Here, everyone takes you in, welcomes you, and, even as strangers, we embrace each other. Out there in NYC? It’s a world of diversity, where you can only imagine everyone’s lives by the glimpses you experience. People from everywhere in the world, a constant buzz that doesn’t end, and millions of possibilities at every corner. I remember arriving and being so nervous. I had to navigate public transportation by myself to every single place. I was alone, and even though I was quite brave while telling my plans to my friends, arriving there and seeing the enormity of what I’ve done was nerve-wracking. I survived though and, with the goal in mind to just live, I started my journey.
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It was me, my plans, and this city that never slept, just like every piece of media or literature I ever consumed promised. The history, the modern sites, the food, and of course, the people, I was absolutely consumed. I loved the high pace of everything, yet still having the ability to stop and take it all in, while the city still ran its course, it was almost cinematic. Of course, I don’t know if residents feel the same, but as an outsider from a very, very different climate, New York was like a date I took myself on that ended as a retreat. I learned so much about life, history, and art, but most importantly, about myself. New York was an all-consuming monster, which winked at you when you thought yourself finally accustomed to it. The famous Big Apple was an eye-opening experience, where not only did I learn that dreams do come true, but that time for yourself, your experiences, and your presence is invaluable.
What is greedy about wanting to live? What is greedy about dreaming? Yearning? Wanting? For so long, this feeling of guilt followed me around whenever I thought about spending my savings or doing this one selfish thing for me and no one else. I thought wanting, dreaming, especially when I still had so much to do, and so much to be strict about, was akin to a personal failure. The Big Apple told this young woman from Puerto Rico: Look at the world. It is grand and it truly, really, does not care.
Perhaps any place in the world can provide that revelation for you, but for me it was the place where many people from different parts of the world gather, the city that never sleeps, and that I see constantly in the media, like some unattainable thing. Looking back, I think it was never really that crazy of a dream, but I guess there are many instances where we see things as impossible until they are right there, in front of us, and we are faced with the reality that they aren’t so far away after all.