And so the story ends...

Disclaimer: This might get sappy... proceed with caution.

A week ago I found myself standing directly across the street from the first apartment I stayed at when I moved to New York.

2 and half years ago I stood on that side of the street and said a teary eyed goodbye to my mother who was leaving me to finally make my big city dreams my own reality. When I called for her car the operator promised five minutes in his broken English and as I watched her pull away I cried and ached, wishing for another five or ten minutes to say goodbye.

Last Tuesday I stood on the other side of the street saying another teary goodbye to someone else whom I was not ready to part ways with. As I pulled away from him in this town car I felt the same pang, painfully wishing there had just been five or ten more minutes.

I came to New York with big dreams loosely tangled up in ambition yet without a real concrete plan. I had graduated college a week earlier and set off to New York to do something different, be someone different, see something different. While I had no plan and no real idea of how things would happen, I knew that somehow I would be OK. I was and I am.

It didnt start out easy...

The city confused, exhausted, cursed and more or less beat me down. A kind of rehab where they rip you to shred before you can be built back up. And while I cant say I was ripped to shreds... I was tested. But no matter how hard it got, leaving was never an option. And so I stayed... and waited out the storm.

The clouds cleared and I found a city that loved, challenged, adopted and embraced me. While it continued to test me, those tests allowed me to grow into a person whom I was content with being. Finally, I fit perfectly in my own skin. If I was a real douche bag, I might even say, I found myself.

(you like how I said something totally cheesy, without really saying it? yeah I also learned how to be awesome and kinda sneaky there)

The hectic, frantic, smelly, freezing, sweltering, polluted and beautiful New York. Thank you.

Thank you for an incredible journey.

Thank you for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Thank you for Prospect Park and that 3.4 mile loop.

Thank you for Mister Softie Trucks in the summer.

Thank you for Bodegas with loud Spanish music.

Thank you for tiny apartments with horrible landlords, noisy neighbors, floods, crazy roommates whose idea of reconnecting involves small claims court -- these all at least made for good stories. So yes, thank you.

Thank you for express trains.

Thank you for platform musicians and train car performances.

Thank you for the New York Times.

Thank you for that train ride home over the bridge at night with the city lit up.

Thank you for the new friends and relationships with old ones.

Those of you who touched my life there, you know who you are. Thank you.

So, as my facebook status once said.

So long New York, and in the words of Dan Slotnik, its been real.