I'm not sure
>> Thursday, June 17, 2010
...if anyone from CITYterm will ever read this, but I guess I can't let that stop me; I've been waiting entirely too long to be able to complete this letter. I started it during the semester when I began to really comprehend how much I had changed. So, as the entry goes on, the tense will change, signifying the parts that I wrote once I returned home.
Dear CITYterm Spring 2010,
You took me in as this girl who had never ridden a bus in her life, hated East Asian food, feared the homeless, had never shared a living space with anyone, and was absolutely sure that she could never live in a place that didn't have tons of trees and grass and suburbs and 6 lane highways. And now I'm in love with the subway system (eagerly awaiting opportunities to utilize public transportation whenever I can), and find sushi and any kind of dumpling absolutely delectable. Sometimes I still think about that homeless boy, Joseph, who would now be a junior in college, but lost his financial aid and had to drop out, with no family left to support him. I value the relationship that I formed with this complete stranger in the 20 minutes that we chatted during our Midnight Run trip in Manhattan. You taught me how to open my heart even wider to the world, when I was already sure when I came to CITYterm that it was open as wide as it could go. Every moment in the semester was an opportunity to learn something, every subway ride was an opportunity to make a new friend. Strangers weren't a danger; they were a friend whose name you just didn't know yet.
Thank you for giving me the most secure place to change. I miss you, and am so thankful to have made such beautiful, unique connections with such wonderful people. I love our city. I love our dirty, busy, loud, famous, restless, beautiful city of New York. I try to think about living in other places, and going to college in a small town, and I simply can't imagine myself not living in the city at least one more time, if I don't end up there for life.
It's been 21 days since our closing ceremony. My room is a mess. My suitcases have just been sitting in the middle of my floor, somewhat unpacked at best. My boxes of belongings that I shipped back have been in the hallway, some unopened, others opened because they had necessities in them like my pillows or my laptop charger. I shipped home a box of all the things that were on my wall in my dorm room. All the ticket stubs, Broadway Playbills, photos, subway maps and train schedules, drawings, and notes. I've been trying to figure out what to do with them. Scrapbook them? Tape them to these walls? Keep them in the box and put it under my bed until a time when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic? I had to clean my room today or I'm grounded. I opened all of the boxes and unpacked the suitcases completely, and put all of the things from my dorm room on my bulletin board with all my similar home things (movie ticket stubs, doodles, witty buttons, medals, homecoming ribbons, etc). I felt the old and the new mix into something that makes me so eager to see how else I'm going to change.
Thank you, CITYterm, for the most incredible 120 days of my 17 years of existence. I am prone to using hyperboles as a means of expressing my experiences (ex/ "No guys, really, Shake Shack has the most incredible burgers in the freaking world!"). But that statement wasn't hyperbole because I realize that CITYterm wasn't only my greatest experience thus far, but it was also an example, a taste, a teaser, for what I want; what kinds of memories and experiences and friendships and adventures I want to juice out of this life of mine.
Yours forever,
ZMar
