Happy 4th, everyone! Hope you have a great weekend with time to read and relax and hit that reset button, because we all need it. Was at the beach yesterday; it's been a long seven weeks working on my side project and trying to hold down a job and keep the family going, too, and the fatigue hit me right on the nose this week. So I was thankful that a friend insisted we stop in and see her at her condo facing the Atlantic Ocean.
Today, we're staying in the city. Holiday weekends almost always renew my love affair with New York because it's always so civilized and gentle in my neighborhood. Parking rules are suspended so you don't get the stressed-out idlers anxious to score a spot. The stores—Zabars included!—are navigable because half the city's fled elsewhere. And the parks are beautiful this time of the year.
But honestly, the city's still wonderful the other days. Busier, yes, but still as special. But we're not prepared to drink the good stuff in because we're so busy angling for the bigger breaks and scrambling for the opportunities. We do it to ourselves, really, all this stressing out. We take on the pressures and demands and tensions of the city as if it were a requirement to living here.
I wonder why that is? Is it because it's the type-As with stuff to prove that are drawn to New York and choose to stay here? (I've certainly know enough who have opted to leave even though they're born-and-bred New Yorkers.) Why do we think the cost of doing business in the city is living a frazzled, can't-breathe life? Who's collecting the fees?
I'm beginning to wonder if all this self-flagellation is actually necessary. I'm a city girl, yes, but is my definition of city life actually on the mark? It seems appropriate to try and free myself of the shackles of mis-defined sophistry and urbanity on Independence Day. Let the soul-searching begin ...
—CityMom
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