10 Memories Of Growing Up In NYC

I am leaving this city in a bit more than three months, so it is time to bask in some nostalgia. Here just 10 of my memories of growing up in NYC. I’m sure you can all relate.

1. Swinging between subway poles

A flash of red and pink. You may have just been ice skating in Central Park, but this is where the real dance unfolds. Mom’s face is blurry as she tells you to slow down, yet you can still hear the smile in her voice. Your presence fills the empty train car. The world is a kaleidoscopic dreamland.

2. First time seeing Times Square at Night

Times Square during the day is so busy and unbearably claustrophobic that you don’t see the appeal. When the sky dims and the lights come on, you realize what you were missing out on. You are always fast–cannotstopmovingdonothavetimetobreathe–but here, you stop in your tracks. Look up at the lights. Take a breath. These are the guilty pleasure moments that sneak up behind you as you groan about slow moving tourists.

3. Subway sentiments: Freshman year vs. senior year

Terrified baby you clutches a biology textbook that feels like it weighs more than you to your chest. You keep to the edges of the subway car, stashed away from everyone. You always wake up the stop before yours, stare out into the void of the subway tunnel, and try not to cry. So engrossed in your last minute cramming, you miss your stop for the first time. Immediate panic ensues.

Slightly older but infinitely wiser you don’t get up until the doors are about to close. You know those few minutes more of shut-eye outweigh missing your transfer train. Or so you tell yourself, as you continue to wake up the stop before yours–but at least you stay seated.

4. The view from the Manhattan Bridge and what came out of it

You take the train further uptown than you need to partially to spend more time with your friends and partially for the view. The view from the Q train as you speed over the Manhattan Bridge of all the blurred, yet still vibrant, still beautiful, glittering lights is one you will never forget. During the winter of your senior year of high school, you visit the carousel hiding among those lights. Sitting on the steps outside it, you are almost close enough to touch the view you normally gaze at from a distance. It is breathtaking.

5. The trek from 72nd Street to 25th Street

These are the things you do when you don’t want to put more money on your Metrocard–sorry MTA, better luck next time! Yes, it is hot, and yes, you are sweating, but this is you showing your mom that you are more than a lazy couch potato. You put on a Linkin Park album and power walk your way across half of Manhattan. Growing up in NYC gives you a lot of opportunities for excercise. Break out that fitbit.

6. Midnight K-BBQ

A dinner that was supposed to end at 8 PM stretches out to 10 PM waiting for the last person to show up. Mom calls about when you are getting home and you lie and say 11 PM. 10 PM stretches out into 12 AM, and suddenly it is the next day and hours later than you were supposed to be home but it is okay because you are with people, friends, and you don’t want this moment to end. Walking through the city at the break of dawn feels like tempting fate. It is scary, but you are not alone, and you know this fear will go away. It is going to be okay. You learn that there is a surprisingly large amount of people on the train at 1 AM.

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7. Dunkin’ Donuts Hot Chocolate

Everyone shuffles in covered in snow, freezing cold. You seem to have a thing for filling up completely empty places as your group takes up most of the front tables near the door. The cold doesn’t go away with the hot chocolate, but that snowflake frozen on your eyelash melts and drips down your face. The rest of the space is filled with questions: Are you crying, or are you just happy to see me? Can you believe we’re graduating in less than half a year?

8. Chasing pigeons

There’s that red statue you always pass by on your way to Cortlandt Street, and there are those pigeons. Every Saturday, like clockwork. You and your friend are walking to the train, and this isn’t just every Saturday, because this walk becomes a jog, which becomes a sprint to see who can displace as many pigeons as possible. You flap your arms and run, your bookbag thumping every step you take, and immerse yourself in the craziness.

9. Ice cream ventures

You have a massive sweet tooth, and you never deny it. You drag your friends all around the city, hitting six ice cream places in one day, to satisfy that craving–yes, it is that bad sometimes. What you love the most is not the ice cream itself, but knowing that you’ll never run out of places to visit. Every corner is another opportunity to sample another delicious dessert–all you have to do is find it.

10. Messing up my deli order

You know your deli order better than you know yourself sometimes, and sometimes, you know the stranger sitting next to you on the train that morning more than you know your deli order. It’s normal because you aren’t always sure of what you want–the same-old or spicing it up a bit this time. The one thing you know will always be there, however, is the familiarity: the look on the deli worker’s face as you stumble through your list of menu items, the kick of the spicy chipotle sauce in your sandwich, and the jokes and laughs as it drips all over your hands.