New Yorker

I’ve worked 24 hours in the past two days. I think that makes me officially a New Yorker.

My second day of work lasted until past midnight. I worked hard, and in a strange way, it felt good. I treated myself to a taxi ride back to Brooklyn. And as I rode across the Brooklyn Bridge, listening to the driver speak Farsi into his blue tooth headset, I stared at the giant buildings getting further behind me. I marveled at the authority of the towering concrete topped with intricate spires. I looked over the water to my right to see the Statue of Liberty holding out her torch in the distance. And I thought, this is why people love New York.

I keep having to remind myself that I actually live here. I take the subway to the office in the morning with millions of other New Yorkers. I eat lunch in a shady park sandwiched between two noisy, traffic-packed boulevards. I work my ass off in an office until the wee hours of the night and when I’m done, I ride home across the Brooklyn Bridge.

I live here, I tell myself again. And it makes me smile.