As I write this article, I have 18 days left in New York City before I have to go back to school. And I am freaking out. I feel like I don’t have enough time to do all of the things I want to do in the city that never sleeps, because I actually need to sleep.
But with the looming first day of class in the near future, I know reality will soon hit me like a brick. Not only will I have to start selling my soul to studying again, move into my new apartment in 48 hours, and make up for all the lost time with my best friends this summer simply over the course of a few nights during syllabus week (challenge accepted), I can already predict my re-entry culture shock. This is something anyone else who has traveled or studied abroad knows all too well.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have dreamed about living in Manhattan. When I visited New York City for the first time I was 7 years old. On my last day, I sat at a table in a deli with my mom, and I started to cry. It was different though because it was the first time I had ever felt hot tears stream down my face from something other than sadness. Instead, I felt exhilarating happiness. Because I felt so safe, and I knew this was where I was meant to be. My mom asked me why I was crying, and I said, “Because I am just so happy here”.
I am a very visionary person, and so I saw a vision of myself in the future right then. Just like 13 Going on 30, I was the older version of myself. I saw myself striding down the street in a breezy skirt with my hair up in a ponytail swishing in the wind, carrying a little purse and practically skipping down the street. The girl I saw was confident leader, carefree, smiling, in love, and happy. I looked up to that girl. I never questioned her, and without a doubt, I knew that that would be me one day, living here in Manhattan. I would have to work hard and play the right cards, but I innately wouldn’t really have to do anything other than trust myself, because I knew I was going to make it.
As I grew up and kept living my life, I never discarded that vision of that girl and promise to myself, but it went dormant, and was a little forgotten. I focused more and more on the immediate future, and all of the drama of my life “right now”, and created plans for the next few years only. I always knew I was working toward something, and I will feel it when I get there, but so often I lost that vision, that feeling, that trust in myself.
Then all of the sudden, it happened. I got to NYC. It was a random, unexpected journey that looking back I had little control over. It wasn’t even my idea to come here this summer. But I don't think it was luck. Because when I got the phone call that I got the job that I was going to NYC, I broke down and cried. I actually sobbed. I cried and cried for almost an hour and felt adrenaline I hadn’t felt for years. I put my head in my hands and wrapped my arms around my body instinctively. I called my best friend and she told me to hold my cat so I did that too.
It took me several minutes to figure out why I was crying so hard and couldn't stop. I felt ridiculous. But then it hit me. I was crying the same hot tears that I cried when I was a little girl, sitting in that deli on my last day in NYC. And I was so filled with emotion because I unconsciously had done something I forgot that my inner child had been working toward all along. I had made my inner child proud. I had done what she had set out to do. I had fulfilled my promise to the little girl inside of me when I was 7, full circle.
Not everyone will do this in their life. But the thing is, you can. You can follow the dreams of your inner child, and then unlock the happiness that you forgot about. You just have to gently remember what it was that you wanted all along. And if you can't remember, it's ok, because all you have to do is trust yourself. Your inner self does know what to do.
And maybe you don't know what you want yet, but I bet you know how you want to feel. Or you can trust your inner child to tell you when you have found what you want.
Right before I left for New York City, I told someone how frustrated I was that I was trusting the universe and some kind of higher power, but I still didn't feel safe and like I was making the right choices. So then that person just told me “why don’t you try trusting yourself?” We forget all about that sometimes, trusting ourselves. But in light of that conversation, that has been what I have focused on all summer in the face of the constant unknown.
I can’t tell you exactly what you need to get in touch with your inner child today, but maybe all you need to do is close your eyes in the morning before you start your day, all alone in the dark, and sense a presence from within you. Maybe you need to do something that you did when you were a kid, or that makes you laugh uncontrollably, or that makes you feel free of all your “Adulting” problems. I think the happiest people are those who remain somewhat childlike their whole lives, because they are in touch with that kind of intuition that tells them what they really want.
So, now that I’m here, am I the woman I envisioned when I was little? If I were to describe that girl in my adult voice now, I’d say, simply put that, “she has her sh** together.” Do I have my sh** together? Of course not. But this whole trip has been a huge wake up call and reminder for me that the girl I envisioned, my alter ego of sorts, is actually with me all the time, and not just when I am walking down the street in Manhattan. She's the same on the inside no matter how old I am or what I look like or where I am. I found her again here, and I can take her home with me.
Do yourself the honor too of giving a gift to yourself at least once in your life, where you come full circle and make the dreamer inside of you proud. Do whatever it takes to accomplish the dream from a seed that you planted a long time ago and may have forgotten about. And if you don’t know where to start, just take little steps by simply trusting yourself and listening to that voice of intuition in your head, telling you what you really want, and what really makes you happy. I trusted myself, aka my inner child, and if she was smart enough to lead me here, I can’t imagine where she will lead me next.
