[I initially began this post in late May as a tribute to my FOURTH year in New York City, but because I am a procrastinator and because it was summer and because rereading it made me cringe, I avoided it until a week or two ago. It’s essentially a rough draft, but I’m tired of being the only one looking at it. So. Here it is.]

Six months prior to September 11, 2001, I was on top of the world.

At 110 stories high, almost 1,400 feet, I apathetically posed for a picture with my best friend Paige in front of a gray late-winter sky. We were 16-year-olds with short attention spans, exhausted from avenue after avenue, still adjusting to the frigid East Coast air – validation for little interest in another New York landmark. I had already made up my mind that Manhattan was an intense, curious, fascinating place, so it didn’t matter much on that blistery March evening that where I stood was somewhere I’d never be able to again – on top of the World Trade Center.

My father, a New Yorker at heart (and legitimately in the late 60s) and his ladyfriend, Charlie, brought us to the big city for our junior year spring break in 2001. Like most young Southerners, everything I knew about New York was based on history classes or television shows or required reading. Dad talked about the city often, but I had a typical teenager-like tendency to tune out the good stuff.

At 16, the idea of New York was intriguing. But New York as a place seemed suspicious and inconceivable. How could one tiny island boast so much history and authority and magic? It was as if New Yorkers knew and possessed something we all didn’t – and little did I know, I’d spend the next 10 years trying to figure out what that was.

Upon arriving in Manhattan that March, we were quickly introduced to the novel and terrifying concept of “walking” as a method of transportation – something Dad made us do at night from Port Authority to the apartment where we’d be staying. (Turns out it was just a little boot camp for the adventures ahead.) I vividly remember lugging my suitcase through Times Square questioning whether or not I was having a visual seizure or an out-of-body experience or if this electrifying adult playground was just a figment of my tired imagination.

We made our way up Broadway, trickling behind Dad and Charlie with wide eyes, often revealing our tourist identities with every sudden neck jerk and pointed finger. It was all so mesmerizing and nauseating at the same time – the spastic lights, the disarray, the intensity. It felt like we were trapped inside a gigantic slot machine and I wondered how anyone could live amid such immutable chaos.

After our brief, but overwhelming introduction to the city, we finally reached the second floor walk-up apartment in Hell’s Kitchen — a frightening name for a neighborhood at the time. Coming from Houston (a sprawling city with lavish square-footage), it was my first encounter with residential buildings of this fashion – stumpy, stacked, antique rectangles shoved between each other, like cereal boxes in a pantry, each with quaint stoops and more history than I could ever imagine. The set-up of the 47th Street residence was particularly baffling – the rooms were essentially laid out in a straight line: bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, all connected by a series of doorways. This was known as “railroad style” — a term, along with others like “walk-up” and “pre-war” I had never heard before in a residential context. There was no backyard, no separate dining room, no central air and heat, no ample space to host an impromptu dance party. It was clear New Yorkers had to be creative with their living situations and their lifestyles, and that alone made them an impressive, clever breed.

Each morning, Dad would take us for a hearty breakfast at the Galaxy Diner on 9th Avenue and after, we would begin another day of city exploration – maneuvering the streets with intensity and purpose and perpetual curiosity. I don’t remember my specific sentiments about the urban milieu, but I do remember New York being everything and more I had imagined: grimy sidewalks, bright lights, cramped spaces, confusing tunnels, rowdy drivers, beautiful faces, magical moments, flickering neon, foul language, questionable smells, quaint restaurants, everlasting sirens, breathtaking views, endless concrete, glamorous people, constant stimulation. And I was intrigued by all of it.

These observations, however, proved that New York was a city of contradictions. It was easy to find yourself simultaneously in awe and in fear, fascinated and appalled, enlightened and confused at any given moment on any given avenue. I realized later, of course, that this was the beauty of Manhattan. People choose exactly how they want to see the city, whether unimpressed by it all or constantly lost in contradictions. And for some, no rotten smell, no wandering psychopath, no series of sirens, no piles of garbage, no clusterfuck of fannie pack-clad tourists could ever deflect from the realness, the romance, and the rawness of New York City.

But back to the story.

On the fourth or fifth day, Dad decided to let Paige and I explore the city on our own for a few hours – something our mothers might have died a little over – while he and Charlie spent the morning dipping in and out of art galleries.  After reviewing the parameters of our independent adventure, we were instructed to meet Dad in front of Canal Jeans in SoHo sometime after lunch. (This was long before 16-year-olds and low-tech, artist fathers owned cell phones, so coordination was key.)

Naturally, we were very wise with our time – spending the first hour or so enjoying the apartment all to ourselves, discussing how we might decorate it differently, who would get what room, how we’d afford the rent. We daydreamed about the possibilities of our future and thumbed through old books on the shelves and casually prepared for the day, pretending this was just a typical morning for us in the big city.

After playing house (apartment?) all morning, we ventured out into the wild with one solid mission in mind: to find the Hell’s Kitchen psychic we saw on our walk home the night before. We wanted to slip in and have our destinies revealed by a real fortuneteller – someone who might tell us our fate was to end up in New York City…something we could take home that wasn’t tangible…something we’d remember forever. We spent a lengthy amount of time eagerly and cautiously combing the West 40s, hoping to find the woman in the window. But with our hours of independence quickly slipping away, we gave up our clairvoyant quest and began our journey downtown.

I don’t recall the train Paige and I took that day (I assume either the A, C, E or the 1, 2, 3), but I do know that not long after boarding, something wasn’t right – the stop we needed wasn’t announced. Authoritative mumbles were coming from the loud speakers above us, but we couldn’t interpret fast enough. We believed naively that they were trying to address our issue and hoped the train would magically maneuver back to our stop in a matter of minutes. But that wasn’t the case, and eventually we were lost – trapped! – in Brooklyn.

“Street smart” isn’t exactly a word I’d use to describe myself at 16. However, there must have been some sort of future savvy New Yorker in my blood (or just basic human instincts?) because not too soon after we were rumbling over the East River, clutching each other tightly, did we finally realize we should exit the train and locate an MTA worker. We learned very quickly the particular station in SoHo we needed was under construction and we closely followed the man’s instructions for making it safely back to Manhattan.

Before long, we were greeting Dad and Charlie in front of Canal Jeans, thrilled to tell them about our accidental out-of-borough experience and survival story.

I think I grew an inch that day.

The rest of our New York adventure was filled with off-Broadway shows and museum visits and new cuisines and necessary shopping excursions (I came home with an ill-fitting, black pleather jacket that could be worn in Texas for all of one week out of the year.) On one of our last nights, while meandering through Washington Square Park after seeing Blue Man Group on Lafayette Street, a white stretch limo rolled up and Dad let it sweep us off our tired feet. It was one of those moments you don’t realize at the time that you’ll remember fondly for the rest of your life.

Five years after my innocent first kiss with New York, after a high school and college graduation, I packed my bags and moved to that incredible, curious, fascinating place I hadn’t stop thinking about. And here I am,  several years after that fateful decision, living in Hell’s Kitchen, in a railroad-style apartment, several blocks from the Galaxy Diner. I pass that psychic on 47th street almost daily – turns out I didn’t need her to tell me this is where I’d end up.

In a way, you could say I’ve come full circle, but that would imply that something began and ended in the same place. While my inherent love for New York was fostered in Hell’s Kitchen and while – after four apartments in four and a half years – that is currently where I reside, there is certainly no ending in sight. Especially since I’m bound for another exciting (and burdensome) move in less than a month.

Want to know the best part? I still look at New York the same way I did during those March days in 2001 — with wide-eyed excitement, confusion, uncertainty and eagerness to see what unfolds. But the city is no longer suspicious or inconceivable — I know exactly what it is New Yorkers possess (I, too, possess those secrets) and more than ever do I feel like I’m on top of the world.