Why I Love New York

I'm writing this early in the morning, and from where I'm sitting I can see my Australian ex asleep in my bed.

A few days ago, I hadn't spoken to her in quite some time.

Apparently she had been reading some of my essays, including the one about my recent ER visit, and she reached out to see how I was doing.

I've learned recently that more people quietly keep tabs on us than we probably realize.

A few people from my past reached out after that essay, which was unexpectedly nice.

In her case, one conversation led to another, which led to dinner last night.

And apparently dinner went well.

We hadn't really known each other for years, so much of dinner was spent filling in the space between then and now.

She told me about her life.

I told her about mine.

Relationships, careers, loss, health issues and all the things life eventually introduces whether you invite them in or not.

What struck me was how much she had changed and how much she hadn't.

She is still young, but life has seasoned her.

She has experienced loss and dealt with enough uncertainty around her own health to understand something most of us don't fully appreciate until we're forced to.

Life is fragile.

There are no guarantees.

Yet none of that diminished the person I remembered.

She is still vibrant, bubbly and incredibly engaging.

She laughs easily, talks passionately and has an energy that makes the space around her feel more alive.

The difference is that now there is some mileage underneath it.

Perspective. Experience. Depth.

Life didn't take away her energy.

It gave her energy context.

And somewhere during dinner I realized that her energy for me was exactly as I remembered it.

Mine for her was too.

That fascinated me.

I've written before about how energy is sometimes only truly understood when it disappears.

Last night I experienced the reverse.

Sometimes you don't realize how much you've missed a certain kind of energy until you unexpectedly feel it again.

And, not to diminish the intellectual analysis here, she is still ridiculously sexy.

But that's almost beside the point.

• • •

Because here is the funny thing about beauty in New York.

Beauty is like grass in the Midwest.

There is so much of it that eventually it becomes part of the landscape.

Walk around SoHo on a Saturday afternoon and you'll understand what I mean.

Beautiful women are everywhere.

At some point, beauty alone stops being particularly remarkable.

What separates one person from another is everything that happens after you notice her.

Personality. Energy. Humor. Curiosity. Warmth.

Whether she laughs easily.

Whether she has something to say.

Whether she has lived enough to know what matters.

Whether you find yourself wanting dinner to last another hour.

That's what I had forgotten about my Australian ex.

Not how beautiful she was.

How much fun she was to be around.

Years ago, we could talk about what we wanted to do with our lives.

Now we could also talk about what life had done to us.

Those are very different conversations.

And yet underneath all of that experience was the same energy I remembered.

Life had changed both of us without completely changing either of us.

It also created a contrast I couldn't ignore.

In retrospect, I had spent years in something whose energy was almost the opposite of what naturally draws me in.

Reserved instead of expressive.

Guarded instead of open.

So much left unsaid.

So much time trying to understand what the other person was thinking or feeling instead of simply experiencing it.

You can get used to almost anything when you live inside it long enough.

Then you sit across from someone who laughs easily, talks passionately and makes absolutely no mystery of the fact that she's enjoying being with you.

And you remember.

Oh, right. This.

I love this.

Not some grand declaration about where one dinner is going.

The energy.

I love being around people who seem happy to be alive.

Maybe especially people who understand that being alive isn't something to take for granted.

And I live in possibly the best city on earth for finding them.

Beauty gets your attention. Personality keeps it.

That's what I love about New York.

There is so much life here that I couldn't possibly experience all of it.

So many people.

So many stories.

So many restaurants.

So many neighborhoods.

So many things to try.

So many women I haven't met.

So many nights that haven't happened yet.

It's an enormous playground.

And the funny thing about abundance is that it changes what you value.

The next extraordinary woman isn't necessarily extraordinary because she's the most beautiful woman in the room.

In New York, she probably isn't.

There are twelve more coming through the door.

She's extraordinary because twenty minutes later, you've forgotten anyone else is in the room.

Beauty gets your attention.

Personality keeps it.

And women are only one part of the playground.

On any given day I can climb, bike along the water, see great art, hear live music, eat almost any cuisine on earth, walk ten miles through neighborhoods that feel like completely different cities, or stumble into something I didn't know existed when I woke up that morning.

I can decide at six o'clock what I want to do at seven.

That's an incredible luxury.

For the last several years, I don't think I fully appreciated just how much was available outside my door.

Too much of my emotional world had become centered around one relationship.

Thinking about it.

Trying to understand it.

Trying to fix it.

When something occupies that much space, you don't necessarily notice what it is crowding out.

Then it ends.

At first, what remains looks like empty space.

It isn't.

It's room.

And I happen to live in New York City.

Holy shit. What a place to suddenly have room.

Maybe there is something particularly wonderful about discovering this after 50.

We hear a lot about life getting smaller as we get older.

Mine seems to be doing the opposite.

I want more experiences.

More people.

More conversations.

More dinners that go longer than expected.

More places I haven't been.

More women who surprise me.

More things I'm terrible at the first time I try them.

More mornings when I wake up and think, how exactly did yesterday turn into that?

I don't know who I'll meet next.

I don't know what conversation I'll have, what invitation I'll accept or what completely ridiculous thing I'll decide sounds like a good idea.

And increasingly, I don't want to know.

This morning, I'm sitting here looking across the room at a beautiful woman sleeping in my bed who wasn't supposed to be here.

And I'm smiling.

Not because I know what happens next.

Because it's pancake time.

Paul Harkins