Reunion Tale

Last week, my friend Sarah and I orchestrated a grand surprise visit to our old home of New York. Specifically, we wanted to surprise our great friend and my old flatmate Jes and catch up with her and with the city. We met up at the airport having flown in from our respective homes in Manchester and Missouri, squealed like valley girls when we found each other, and waited for Jes on her stoop when she got back from work! The look on her face was worth all the plotting and planning and I had an AMAZING week catching up with familiar faces and places.

New York retains a certain hold over me. I assumed I would feel more like a visitor, this being my first return after leaving 9 months ago, but as soon as I arrived it really just felt like being home. Everything was so familiar, and it just made sense to me that I was part of the city again. I guess this is partly because the people I left behind really are like family to me, and partly because 4 years is long enough for a place to really get under your skin and never leave. I know it's New York, and this is all so cliched, but going back made me realise that this city just makes sense to me - I get how it ticks and find is easy to tick along in time.

And so the 6 day trip passed in a wonderful swirl of smiles and hugs, of sipping great coffee and catching up on eating bagels, frozen yogurt, sushi, cupcakes...you get the idea. I went with my gorgeous god-daughter to the zoo, I ate brunch (along with Chelsea Clinton!) in the sunshine in Brooklyn, spent an afternoon with dear friends in New Jersey at their amazing house and generally reveled in the city and her people. I felt more buoyant of soul than I have done in a while, but at the same time feel like I made my peace with the new life we're forging in Manchester. New York will always be there. I miss my friends terribly, but they will always be woven into my life, if from slightly further away. And who knows, maybe we'll boomerang back there one day for a more long-term reunion...