Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Feels good to be back!


I am finally in Miami and settled into my South Beach apartment! I'm happy as a sweaty clam baking in the oven that is Miami in the summer. The moving process was tough and trying, however. First, I had to pack up all my belongings and bid farewell to Brooklyn. Then I was at our home outside of Philly in the Pennsylvania countryside. While it's always quiet and calming there, a lot was going on between clearing out my bedroom for the move, my brother's graduation, graduation party, my quick jaunt back to NYC for a shoot with Samsung, and the movers coming to pack everything up for my mom and I to take to Florida. Then we both arrived in Miami and awaited the arrival of the moving truck, which was another long, hot day of unpacking it all in its respective places (storage unit, my apartment, mom's condo). It was quite the process and we were exhausted after it all. I've been running errands all over (took a hajj to Ikea in Sunrise, and been to Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Best Buy more times than I keep track of) and finally feel like I'm nearing the end, as I feel settled in and the apartment feels like mine.


More than anything, I've been enjoying just being back in this city with my family, friends, car, sunshine, beach, amazing sunsets, and all the other things that I missed about it. I've only been back for 2 weeks now and I'm already so thrilled to be back. I'm absolutely loving it and can't wait for what's to come.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

when one door closes, another opens



This past week marked the end of one chapter in my life, and the beginning of another. While it was weird and even a bit sad to leave my emptied Brooklyn apartment and all the memories, and roommates that went with it, I'm excited to see what Miami has in store for me. So below are some photos taken during my last week of running around having fun in the big apple, and a letter I wrote on the subway one day. It was a nice release and helped me say goodbye to NYC.New York,
I love you. It's more than the average girl's infatuation with the magical and seductive appeal of your bright lights, signature skyline, and bustling streets. It's a kind of tough love that can only be experienced by those who've lived and endured the trials of a relationship with you. Visitors and tourists have their own ideal of you in their mind, which is what keeps them coming back for more. But to truly live in this magical, spell-binding city, which I've found most anyone and everyone claims to want to do, is to see her in another light. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the fashionable. The glamor, sex, drugs, and hipster indie rock. You take one from a naive, unprepared adolescent, chew them up, and spit them back out as a cynical, mature adult. But by working three other menial jobs to barely make ends meet, it brings to light what one's priorities are and how much of your soul you're willing to give to get it. The city, and its youth-ridden Brooklyn counterpart, is full of dream chasers. It's an exhausting, larger-than-life machine that works you to the bone. How you come out on the other end is what you take with you from that relationship. Like other prior relationships, you still carry emotional baggage, invaluable memories, cynicism, wisdom, and lessons learned from mistakes made. For me, I realized that I'm not the kind of person who feels the end justifies the means. I endured the struggle, experienced the hustle, and don't see the need to continue to do so for the rest of my transition to adulthood. Until I can support myself, have a job I love, and live the dream New York life I want, I'll leave the hustling to the next batch of Williamsburg's hipster imports. We had a good run, New York, and my life is all the richer for it. Thanks for showing me all of your greatness, your beauty, and the flaws that come with it. Because there is no such thing as perfection, our time together was perfectly imperfect. For now, I'm going back to a former flame- Miami. But after I take care of some unfinished business there, who knows what the cards have in store for us. So this is goodbye. For now.

Love,
Chelsea