True New Yorkers Know That People Living Anywhere Else Must Be, In Some Sense, Kidding

I miss the nights in my apartment, taking off my flip-flops and rubbing the evidence of a long day into the sink - watching the way the black soot from the pavement washes away.

I miss the smell of roasted nuts wafting down 5th Avenue, mixing with Yves St. Laurent perfume, reminding me New York City is everyone's city, no matter where you shop.

I miss Henry, the doorman, and I remember the first time he looked up at me with those big eyes and said, "You look really beautiful, ma'am." I miss smiling every time I use the elevator trick he taught me.

I miss having to choose between the three live shows I want to see in one night, all within a 20-block radius of each other. I miss watching those musicians make it big and then reminiscing about the tiny concerts in the tiny rooms on the tiny streets of the Lower East Side.

I miss the way Jerusalem comes alive on the Upper West Side on Fridays at 4 pm. I miss watching the nebbishy Jewish husbands scurrying home with hideously ugly mixed bouquets for their wives. I miss the ubiquitous "Shabbat Shaloms" on the way to shul. I miss falling asleep to the sounds of "Yedid Nefesh" being sung at the shabbos meal down the hall.

I miss that next to the antique button store is the specialty dog treat store, which is next to the raw foods restaurant, which is next to the all-men's spa, which is next to a luxury drug store, which is next to anything you could possibly want in the world.

I miss formulating the perfect day: brunch at Ocean, manicures and pedicures at Pinky, movie in Times Square, walking home to the Upper West Side, picking up a new outfit on the way, enjoying a two hour nap, meeting friends for dinner in the East Village, and lounge-hopping behind velvet ropes until the hour at which my mother wakes up. I miss that I can wake up the next morning and craft a completely different perfect day, never seeing or doing one thing I saw or did the day before.

I miss cramming into a friend’s 10x7 "living room" for a cocktail party, watching everyone guffaw over how beautiful and spacious the apartment is.

I miss friends who will scoop you up when your head spins with grief, whisk you down to the Lower East Side for the best $22 bottle of wine you ever tasted, and make the problems melt away into the legs forming on the sides of that perfectly beautiful wine glass.

I miss the last days of fall and the way the air smells changes. I miss inhaling deeply, smiling, and knowing winter is on the way.

I miss the salon owner who knows me, knows what color I paint my fingernails, and slips my credit card back to me, saying, "You pay cash. I give discount. You pay cash."

I miss reading messages of truth on telephone poles - bourgeois graffiti.

I miss taking the 2 train to the C train to the L train, and emerging from underground in a completely different borough in a neighborhood that feels like it could not possibly be in the same city as the one I left an hour earlier.

I miss being a part of the scenes - I miss the way I could circulate between so many different communities, sometimes experiencing the way my circles are concentric, and sometimes never seeing the same faces more than once a month.

I miss being exasperated by tourists and mothers with strollers and loud pet babies on the subway at rush hour. I miss pretending that, after 6 years, I have earned my stripes more than they, that I somehow have a bigger stake in the city that is no one's and everyone's.

I miss trying to decide whether the corned beef and sour dills are better at Artie's or The Stage or The Carnegie or Katz's or one of the other delis within a stone's throw.

I miss the ability to recreate myself every day, the chance to shed my skin anew with the city every morning. I miss the way I can be a new person in every moment, meet a new circle of friends, and take one more step closer to being the person I imagine myself to be.

I miss how hard it is to make friends in a city of 8.2 million people.

I miss how soft New Yorkers are underneath their tough exteriors. I miss how the tattoo-covered, Natty Light-drinking biker at the end of the bar will shoot the shit for hours, giving the most honest advice you have heard from anyone.

I miss the reassuring whisper of the city 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - the symphony of car alarms, screaming children, screaming adults, garbage trucks. My newfound silent reality makes me uneasy.

I miss knowing when the seasons are changing by the number of people out in the streets or sitting in the parks.

I miss having the most gorgeous and most utilized city park a block from my front door.

I miss that trillions of dollars worth of the world's best art exists within the boundaries of my (our) tiny island. I miss that, when instructed to write a one-page reflection on the exhibit of my choice, I can hop down to the Guggenheim between classes and quickly jot down my thoughts on the latest light installation piece.

I miss watching, in spite of my adamancy about being fiercely independent, the circles of community form around me. I miss a city that compels you to accept your friends as family. I miss a city that showed me within the first 2 weeks of arriving, through the disaster of September 11th, how important it is to say I love you before you go and to let someone know where you are going.

I miss finding every imaginable form of produce and the most gorgeous fresh flower - roses that look like actual terra cotta - at the corner bodega.

I miss writing my rent checks for the amount most people spend on rent in three months for an apartment three times the size. I miss cuddling up in my perfect bed, opening the slats on my wall-to-wall blinds, looking out into the gigantic tree outside my window, and thinking how worth it this all is.

I miss knowing that, no matter way, I will never be the craziest person in the room if I stay between the East and West Side Highways.

I miss never being able to be the most anything - the most fashionable, the most intelligent, the most wealthy, the most interesting, the most avant-garde.

Most of all, I miss the city I grew up in - the city where I really found myself. Then lost myself. Then found myself again.

I miss the city that forced me to challenge my every assumption, to form an opinion, to become the interesting person to talk to at a cocktail party.

I miss the city that taught me that to be in the center of it all is not the same thing as to be the center of it all.

I miss the city that helped me form my thick skin, and then painfully peeled back that thick skin, reminding me how important it is to experience life, to feel life, to live in the moment, to get hurt, to get angry, and to be honest.

I miss getting lovedrunk on that city, intoxicated by glittery flashing lights, by the endless possibilities - feeling cradled in the arms of her anonymity.

I miss the way the city spits you out as fast as she sucks you in, making you question every move, unsure whether you can do "it," whether you can make "it."

I miss falling in love with my city all over again every morning.

I miss knowing my boundaries, learning the grid of the streets and knowing it like the back of my hand, in a city of endless possibility.

I miss participating in the magical experiment that is New York City. I am convinced she is just one big experiment - there is really only one kind of New Yorker; we all just dress differently. We are the most narcissistic, self-involved, attention-wanting, attention-grabbing people you will every meet. If you peel away the layers, we are also the most community-seeking, loving, un-self-confident people you will ever meet. We create an enormous show for the tourists everyday in our fishbowl. We would not have it any other way.

I miss the way the city puts all her cards out on the table, lets you know what she is about, and lets you know whether you make the cut.

I miss knowing where I stand.