I remember trying my mother's coffee when I was little, and thought it was good only when dipping a cookie into it. A few years passed before I tried it again, and I started drinking it regularly when I was 17 and moving to New York. My sister used to joke with me about how I would become some beatnik the second I moved to the city, wearing all black, drinking black coffee, being snooty, and talking about Baudrillard and Hobbes and Margaret Mead. To be perfectly honest, she wasn't very far off. When I moved to the city, I lived an amazing life, the life I thought I should be living, but it was missing something.
I thought what I was missing was life experience, travel, and romance, but I still fell short. When I moved out of the city, I thought I was just missing the city. After spending a lot of time in NYC recently, and even visiting my old stomping ground at NYU, I realized what I was missing the whole time: myself. I wrote a blog two years ago about the cookies in the Dr. Seuss cookie jar, and how I just tossed it aside and proclaimed it too juvenile. I think about those cookies often and how I acted, and I always cringe. I realize now my mother was trying to give me a part of myself, and at the time it was something I was desperate to toss aside.
All of this clarity did not come all at once. After all, there is a two year gap in this blog. I started this blog as a quest to find myself, to return to the person I wasn't sure I knew anymore. I decided then to concentrate on figuring out my favorite cookie; once you find your cookie, you find yourself and the richness in life.
The thing is, I knew my favorite cookie all along. I knew who I was, I was just plain terrified. It's been a long two years, but really my favorite cookie was the kind in the Dr. Seuss cookie jar, those extra-extra chocolate morsels with a confectioner's sugar coating, the ones I didn't even finish. It feels so good knowing this about myself, knowing I am only a recipe (and a cup of coffee for dipping) away from who I really am.
I am truly thankful for this clarity, and know I wouldn't have gotten here without Cheri's visit. I hadn't seen her in three years, and it was wonderful to have her around as a reminder of our NYU days, but also as just a good friend who isn't at all enamored with the culture or excitement of New York. I'm not going to lie, I still love New York. I still love people watching, the crazies, and the unexpected. But life is different and much more difficult there as an adult, and I didn't truly realize it until this week. I don't just want to live or work in the city just to do so, I want a good quality of life. It's really good to know this about myself. I may still drink my coffee and talk about Margaret Mead, but at least now I will do it because I love it, not because I'm trying to be someone I'm not.
