Sometimes I get really lost in New York City.
And no, I don’t mean physically lost. (I know the city pretty well, and when it comes to areas I’m not familiar with, HopStop is my go-to app.) I mean mentally lost in New York City.
Sometimes I try and think about if I were a tourist and how blown away I would be if I just showed up here. Big buildings, crowded sidewalks, every store you could possibly imagine…on top of so much more. And I know I complain about tourists more than anyone else in the city (especially during rush hour commute), but I could only imagine how overwhelming this place is.
But then I realized how much I didn’t want to be in their shoes. I would hate being a tourist in Manhattan. Actually, I don’t really even know why people come here. It’s a lot to handle. There’s so much to see and do all in a short amount of time – places to go, people to see, restaurants to eat at, bars to drink at…the list goes on and on.
I wrote in this post a while back how lucky I was to be a New Yorker without living in Manhattan and how much I loved all five parts of New York City. And I stand by everything I wrote almost a year ago.
Although I don’t have an apartment in Manhattan, I’m here almost every day of the week. If you asked me I could tell you directions from the Upper East Side to the West Village, I can tell you that the Banana Republic in Flatiron is much better than the Banana Republic in Rockefeller Center, I could tell you what train you should take to get to your dinner reservations on the Lower East Side, and I could give you bar crawl recommendations on Bleecker St.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Lovely Happenings event in Gramercy, but Lydia and I took some photos before. As we were walking to different locations to shoot, I couldn’t help but think about how much I truly love being in this city. Aside from the endless opportunities, there’s literally everything you could possibly think of here. It’s an absolutely magical place, and I cannot believe I had the privilege of growing up here.
Of course there are the not-so-great parts of the city. Delays on the subway when you’re running late, rude people running into you, long commutes thanks to traffic, garbage day in 90-degree weather, below zero degree days yet you’re sweating by the time you’re in the office, and so on. I’m sure there’s a lot more, but I don’t want to bash on the city.
I just can’t.
The truth is, for every sh*tty thing about New York City, there’s about 600 million reasons why it’s the greatest. There truly is no place on Earth, and to me it’s equivalent to the center of the universe…everything just happens here.
And in those moments where I want to curse the city (or push someone down the steps of the subway for walking too slow), I usually try to take a step back to think about a few things I love about New York…because it really is awesome.
….oh, and this vest and these boots are pretty awesome too 😉
WHAT I’M WEARING:
DRESS: TOBI (SIMILAR)
VEST: THAKOON FOR DESIGN NATION
BOOTS: STEVE MADDEN (SPLURGE HERE)
SUNGLASSES: CELINE (SIMILAR)
CLUTCH: BCBG (SIMILAR)
SHOP OVER THE KNEE BOOTS:
SHOP VESTS:
