Happiness and Homesick are both written with H
Today I woke up like many of the other mornings in the last month: realizing that I’m in a new city, in a new home, in a new mattress (which I love) and in a new life. And for that, I’m grateful. Today, like I do every morning, I thank God and the Universe for such an opportunity: dancing all day long, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. To me, that’s paradise.
I love my new city. The buildings are huge and have thousands of windows. The streets are wide, and the neon lights make me feel like there is something else to life than what I’m seeing. Everyday I hear at least 4 to 5 different languages being spoken right next to me (and those who know of my undying passion for languages will understand how happy that makes me). I see all types of faces that up to this moment I hadn’t seen but in the movies and in the pictures in my computer, or in the (ephemeral) trips I took to other countries. I love now sharing my life and my spaces with them. I love the feeling that I’m incorporating their lives and their spaces to mine; we now share something. And honestly, I’ve realized that this is truly the city for sharing; for example, the table I’m writing in, which I’m sharing with two people that I would otherwise not really be interested in talking to under different circumstances.
In the past 6 or 7 weeks (I lost track of time already) I have been living under the effects of novelty. I had never felt so cold that my fingers stopped working. I had never been taught by so many different teachers in so many different styles of dance at once. I had never been in a subway with so many different people at rush hour. Never had I had a Butterscotch Latte in a Starbucks. Or seen so many Caucasian, Asian, African-American, and Latino people crammed up in a park (or subway car). Or shared a lunch with an amazing Russian gay man. Or seen in the live such an incredible opera as Turandot being performed in the Metropolitan Opera House. Never had I had my breath struck away from me by the sight of the tallest buildings I know. I had never had to learn 4 to 7 different pieces of choreography in one day. Or share a home with an old lady suffering from Alzheimer’s.
All I do and have done in this city so far is, in a way, new to me. And my emotions are all weird. Some days I feel I could die of happiness, all of a sudden, when it strikes me that I moved to “the most exciting city in the world”. Some days I feel I made a huge mistake in coming here and leaving everything I knew back at home. Some days I feel I’m a young adult in a huge city with the world at its feet, and sometimes I feel it’s already too late for me to make it in this industry and that time is ticking against me at every moment. Then, after a horrible Ballet class comes an amazing Hip-Hop rehearsal, and then I suck at Street Jazz. But when I go out the studio’s door and take a peek at the Empire State on the one side and the Freedom Tower on the other, I feel like nothing can stop me. When my ex-boyfriend and I broke up, I told him that he should make sure he was truly falling in love with his new crush, for novelty is a powerful force. In a way, it’s this novelty that has made me ride on endorphins through this month, and what has made this moving process such a roller-coaster ride. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m as happy as a rabbit fed with cocaine-filled chocolate carrots. But I fear the moment when it really hits me: this is my new life. I fear the moment when novelty goes away and nostalgia kicks in.
I haven’t been very homesick so far. Not for long, at least. I have always secretly admired my own ability of not getting so attached to, or not really “missing” certain things: my family, my country, my city, my school/uni, my friends. I love and cherish all of these things, but I don’t really miss them tremendously when I’m far away from them. In the past, I’ve always found a way of building new relationships, encountering new places, finding new hobbies to “replace” them, so to speak. But yet again, this time that is something new as well: I had never been away from them not knowing when I would come back to my “normal life” wherein all these things and people dwell.
I haven’t been homesick also because I have so many “lifelines” that connect me with this past life: Skype, WhatApp, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram… I talk to my mom everyday via the first two, and in a rather weird turn of events, our communication is so much better now than it was before. I text my friends, watch their Facebook pages, send them voice messages. It’s not the “real” thing, but in this era of virtual communication and Internet-based relations, it’s very stimulating and enjoyable.
But I lied. Yesterday I felt very homesick for a minute or two. It felt like a punch to the stomach, a strangling sensation in the throat. I wasn’t there to taste the food they had cooked together. I wasn’t there to make witty remarks or make the stupid and hilarious faces I do whenever someone says something where I can find a innuendo. I wanted to be there and hug my fiends, and feel the warm fabric of their clothes and the smell of their hair, but I couldn’t. And I missed it. To me, they were only a mesh of voices coming out of a small black smartphone, and I was one of two voices coming out from an iPad. Their words and cheers carried a world of feelings and memories that lit up my night, that I can’t take away from it. I actually had a great time lying in my (horrendous) sofa and laughing with them. But even now, writing these lines, I can’t shed the emptiness, the frustration of not being there.
Not being there, missing out on things. That is the B side of the happiness and joy that I feel everyday walking these streets. I read somewhere (probably a Facebook status), that as you grow up you realize that the happiest moments are also those tainted with the most sadness. That you can feel absolutely lonely and well-accompanied at the same time. That success can come knitted with a deep feeling of failure. And I guess that’s what I’m discovering in these few months. The moment I took that flight from Bogotá to New York City I entered a state of transition, I believe. A symbolic death happened, but I haven’t had the time or the desire to mourn. But mourn what? They are still there: my friends, my family, my old house, my university. I’m just not part of them anymore. I’m now living in a city where I share other spaces, other places, other activities with other people.
I’ve had a lot of these “Shit! I moved to New York!” moments during the past month. And so far they’ve all left a rushing feeling of thrill and excitement. Yesterday was the first time one of those moments hit me so hard, and today I’m kind of feeling the aftermath. I’m going to be okay. I always find a way of making the most out of rather emotional situations. And even though I felt that longing sensation and the frustration that came with it, I know I took the best road (certainly not the easiest, but the most rewarding one). Patience, I think, is what will guide me once novelty has faded away and nostalgia is long gone.
