me re: my life

7.3%

It's funny how quickly a new life can become a routine - I guess humans are pretty malleable that way. Tomorrow it will be a month since I moved to New York City and it seems almost absurd that I'm 7.3% of the way finished with my internship. Wait, does that make it seem like I'm counting?

Actually I've really enjoyed my employment so far... For a while I felt like I was acting or "playing" doctor, but then I realized that even if I don't know everything I know a lot more about what's best for the animals I see than their owners do. I've also found the people I work with to be generally helpful and pleasant. The hours and days and lack of defined schedule and seeming total disregard for our ability to have a personal life hasn't ruined me yet and I'm hoping it won't.

I have learned a few new things about myself in these past few weeks however...

1. I love (and need) to be alone sometimes. Not even like alone at Starbucks, but like, alone in a room with no one else. Maybe with just some music and a cup of tea. Just a little bit every few days is all I need but when I don't get it I start to feel crazy. Like I've lost my center.

2. Mobility is relative to the range in which you feel you need to travel. Having sold my car when I moved, I felt trapped during my first week here. Even though everything I physically needed was easily obtainable in my neighborhood and I had the farthest reaches of the city just a subway ride away, I wanted to be in Boston and felt like my ability to get there easily was limited. Mobility, or one's satisfaction with one's degree of mobility, is entirely dependent on the range and what is obtainable within that range. The rural Kansan may be able to travel great distances, but if what he/she wants isn't within that range, it hardly means more than the New Yorker who confines his or her life to a few city blocks. Of course I suspect money plays a role here... If I could afford to simply hop on an air shuttle I might have felt differently.

3. I really can get excited about little things. Like having my own bedroom. Yeah. That'll be nice. And having my stuff again. I sense that unpacking boxes next week is going to feel a little bit like Christmas.

posted by Anne @ 9:05 PM