oh, Manhattan...here we are again.

I was looking through some old writing of mine, and found an entry from October 2007, right after I found out I would be interning at MSKCC that coming summer. It took my breath away, because reading it, I could feel how excited I was to return to Manhattan. And if I really thought about it and admitted it, as much as I love Chapel Hill, I do miss Manhattan. If I were offered the right job, I would move back. Here's what I wrote:

....I just got an internship in nyc for the summer, which I am SO psyched about, but now I am wondering where I will live...maybe I just need to chill about that for now, and simply enjoy the fact that I got my dream internship at my dream job place, and I will be in the city I love for 8 weeks, doing what I love. I can go to Crumbs and Magnolia and Bloomingdales and Scoop and Searle, and Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Center and walk down Central Park West and people-watch at Columbus Circle and walk around the village and eat falafel and subway hop and go to Dylan's Candy Bar and The Ginger Man. I can complain about how crowded the 6 is and how sweaty NY summers are. I can walk around Soho on a Sunday and play in the Apple store and try perfumes at Sephora and browse for things for my nephew at the Scholastic store. I can peruse the magazines at the awesome newsstand near my old place in Morningside Heights and go to Duane Reade at 2am if I want to. I can order groceries from Fresh Direct and get bubble tea on the Upper West Side. I can walk around amongst the noises of the city and traffic and people and life and feel like I am in the heart of the world, the blood flowing through my veins so loud I can hear it, like there's no other place that matters. I can't wait.

Reading that, can't you just feel how much I love that city? How much that place also feels like home? I never had to "get used" to New York. When I first moved there to go to Columbia, it felt like home. I was never nervous about wandering the city or subways, and it felt filled with endless possibilities. I still feel that way about it. I thrive on the anonymity there. Funny, because here in Chapel Hill, especially in my neighborhood, it's impossible to be anonymous. I guess there are some places that will always feel like home to us. For me, it's Manhattan, Chapel Hill and Israel. When I left Israel, I was - and still am - homesick, on a visceral and spiritual level.

Anyway. I guess what also triggered this was I found some old papers from Teachers College (Columbia) about Nursing Education/Exercise Physiology/Health Education programs there. I don't know why I kept them....but I did. hmmm.....