dear nyc, i love you
By: Kayla Tomas
Tags: Love Letters, Moving, Life Lessons, NYC, Goodbye

my love letter to new york

Dear NYC,

We need to talk.

I know I left, but it’s time you see it from my perspective. Keep your snarky comments to yourself and hear me out this once:

As I finished up the last of the lease paperwork on my Upper West Side apartment and drained my savings account from move-in costs on January 11, 2020, I said to myself, “The only way that I am moving out of this apartment is if one of three things happens: 1. I meet the love of my life and move in with them, 2. I suddenly make enough money to afford to live alone in my dreamy Chelsea studio, or 3. I leave you forever.”

I know that I’ve always had a flare for the dramatics, but these are all reasonable outcomes. Honestly, I was was hoping for number one, I desired number two and knew that in no way in hell number three would actually happen.

Well… it happened.

On October 1, 2020, I packed up as much as I could carry, made my room “sublet-friendly” and stood on the corner of West 95th Street waiting for my Lyft driver, after not having been in a car for six months. I turned to face the building that I was just beginning to befriend and said, “I’ll see you in the New Year when you’re ready for me, again.”

I needed fresh air and space. A few months to detox and breathe. A cleanse if you will.

What I didn’t expect was to be driving over the G.W.B. nearly six months later, in the pouring rain, in my Dad’s Kia to retrieve the rest of my things, just to turnaround and put your concrete oasis in the rearview. No goodbye gathering with friends that I now call family, or having a margarita at Blockheads. Not even a famous bagel on the way out. Just 12 hours to sleep, get a quick pap-smear before I leave my state Medicaid and figure out how to pack five years worth of shit into a Sorento.

Honestly, I don’t even think that you wanted me back. Your view of the Manhattan Skyline always rattles something in me: that tiny jolt in my lower belly equivalent to the feeling of a first kiss or a final bow, letting me know that in that moment, I am exactly where I need to be. But, you were too hazy to see your skyline. Thank you for that. I couldn’t be with you. It was pouring rain and in that moment, all I needed was to get the fuck out of that car and drink a beer.

“NYC will always be there,” they say. Whoever “they” is should probably rethink that phrase, because the you I knew, loved and cursed had been long gone for awhile. You changed and moved on whether I was ready or not. You were that relationship that I could never really shake. I craved your attention and desperately sought out your love for five years. And in the end, I didn’t even get to say goodbye to you. No closure. Could you have been “the one?” The one I spent all of my time proving myself to only to realize it was never meant to be? Let’s not go too far, but you get the point. You will always be my first love. I’ve loved you longer than anyone else. I still keep your empty Metro cards in my wallet so every time I pull out my debit card, I am reminded of you.

When I think of you, it’s easy to think what was “bad” about our relationship. I glamorized your “grind”: sleepless nights, constant stress of the hustle, working for free, toxic relationships to boost my career, you know, the things people elsewhere never consider in a partnership. But at night, when I lie in bed, you are the first thing that pops into my mind, and although I sometimes want to castrate you and cancel your favorite Netflix series, I can’t help but smile. You taught me so much about myself: my worth, what I truly want. You reminded me that nothing comes for free, and while I sometimes hate you for that, I am ultimately grateful.

I can forgive you for the heartbreak, stress, lack of sleep and insecurity because without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. When you swept me off of my feet you also swept up many monthly Metro Cards in the breeze minutes after purchase, cut me from dream auditions, spilled coffee all over everything while on the subway and watched me get cat-called on the way home from work. You worked me to the bone waiting tables, packaging cupcakes, selling fitness memberships, slinging drinks, singing to babies, bringing Jennifer Hudson and Kristen Chenoweth music stands and hot tea, checking coats and cutting up a CEO’s steak lunches. You constantly rejected me, knocked me on my ass, tormented and seduced me, but you also lifted me up, granted me the friendships of a lifetime and planted a fire under my ass that will never burn out.

I love you. And I always will. Maybe I’ll come back, but right now, I need some space and time for me.

I hope you can understand that.

Always yours,

Kayla