So last weekend I took a trip back to the Midwest and visited St. Louis. It was just a weekend trip but I was really excited for it. I don't go back that often and for the past two years I have only gone back for weekend weddings. I have been in NYC for almost 7 years and its surprising to me how each time I travel to the Lou, my perceptions about this city and that city and my part in it change. Last weekend was the first time I went to STL with someone I'm seeing(he's great) and also the first time I stayed in a hotel there. It was kind of a strange feeling but not such a bad thing either. I ended up staying in Clayton at a pretty swanky hotel(we had a discount) and attempted to show my man how great STL was. It didn't help that the weather was awful most of the trip but I gave it the old college try and we got to drive around quite a bit and see some of the things that make my birthplace pretty neat. Like the new Grove sign and the new Amtrak Station! Way to go STL!
I have conflicting emotions about St. Louis. In a lot of ways im uber defensive of it and am very nostalgic about it. It's a quirky Boston/Cleveland/New Orleans hybrid and I dig it. On the one hand I left it to distance myself from a lot of things that had happened during childhood and also dealing with coming out. At the time I left I didn't want to associate with the Midwest any longer and felt that I needed to be on a coast, that somehow I would tap into the energy there and it would make me a happier person. Last time I felt idealistic was before i moved to New York, because it wasnt exactly the salve I thought it would be. Good lesson to learn at a young age. Any one who knows me pretty well knows that I'm not close with my family but at the same time its not as traumatic as it sounds lol so that wasnt an issue. I'm a big proponnet of making your family from people who really invest in your life. I originally thought California was the place for me but ended up in NYC and thats a story I'll have to write about sometime.And NYC then became my home. And I dug my feet in the ground and even when I was hungry and broke I was stubborn and decided I had to make it work here, to prove something to the nonexistent people watching my life. It's funny how much an 18 year old really thinks the world revolve around them.
My life changed and shifted, there were rough times in which I was so depressed and other times when there were small triumphs that made me proud that I was doing it on my own. I made sure I came back to St.Louis at least once a year though. I think I needd to come back to gauge how well I was doing, to have some kinda comparison to measure my worth. And every time it would be hard to process the things that were felt during those trips. I would touch down at Lambert and I would be happy again and feel safe. I would be around friends and we would do dumb teenager things and drive around the Metro area and reminisce and blast music and go to the Central West End and Towergrove and it would be lovely. I think that the familiarity and the laid back attitude all around was appealing to a younger me who was going through hard times in the big tough Northeast and I would want to move back so badly. I can remember every time dreading getting back on the plane to come back to New York. The funny thing was, I could have stayed in STL. No one was forcing me to stay in NYC, I had nothing tying me down there. In some ways my life was transitory. And yet I stayed. And things got better, albeit slowly and not always in the ways that were hoped for. I really believe that my getting a great job and getting myself into a great school might not have happened had I stayed in the Midwest, at least in my case. I worked hard to make my life better, and in some ways it was more a credit to the city. It forces you to grow up, to deal with tough times, to fight a little harder and I think those are great things. I really came into my own in NYC and in some cases feel more like a New Yorker that a Midwesterner.
So while I was in STL this past weekend I mulled a lot of this stuff over. I thought of how far I had come in the past 7 years, the accomplishments and the dissapointments. As we drover through old decrepit parts of North City I thought about how much I missed certain people in STL and how I missed the charm of the city, the quirkiness of it's neighborhoods. I found myself wondering whether I could see myself back here, would I if given a chance. I liked how different my perspective on the city had changed. We drove through St. Louis Hills and I felt kinder and more sympathetic to it. Now that I had made my peace and my victories elsewhere, I didnt hold a grudge against it like I had previously, even if it was subconscious. Instead, I felt a comraderie with it in a way and was rooting for it to do better. Here I get a little flowery but bare with me. The city, kinda like myself, had been knocked around a bit, took a while to get it together, but was now on its way to, if not greatness, at least a better place in it life.
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