migblog

ever miss a chance, then regret to take that chance afterwards?

i, in this case, would usually fall back on the one maxim i said that i would agree to forever: that no matter what happens, i'll take anything as is with no regrets. i do know, however, that i can always wonder about the what if -- just as long as i don't live in the what if, and as long as i am still happy with myself as i am right now.

a friend and i had a long talk about how, in the span of a short eighteen years, we've molded beliefs so readily. the cynic in me laughs at the very fact that it has only been eighteen years, and that's nothing in life experience. about seven-eighths of that was spent lounging in school, and the person you are decided to believe certain things they ("they" in this case being people in your life who seem to matter) told you.

it's your choice, then, to like strawberries, to enjoy punk music, to believe in god, to smoke, to shop for clothes in the mall,... it's also your choice to choose the friends you have, and to know the difference between accepting someone and receiving someone. to receive someone is to fully take them in as another person; to accept someone is to let them happen. there's a difference in the fact that most of my friends are very well-received people, and the ones who i just accept are there can't really tell the difference because, apparently, i can lie so well.

but again, do i regret that? and there's a level on which things should be marked for regret. a missed phone call? a rescheduled dinner? saying hi to my mom? that junk food i just ate? letting myself go in this mad, mad place? going to berkeley instead of downtown manhattan?

the last one, especially, is a touchy subject. a conversation last night sparked the infamous "so why did you choose berkeley?" question whilst walking down shattuck avenue at night. i told the plain and simple truth: it cost me less than had i gone to new york university, despite the fact that i got accepted to both. and not a week goes by that i don't stop and think about that, about the what if, and i'm starting to feel as if i'm starting to regret what i had done. and i really hope this isn't happening, because it scares me to death that it's right there staring me in the face.

if none of you know, i spent a nice portion of my summer before my senior year of high school living, basically, in downtown manhattan. i was extremely excited to go to new york university, study in the tisch school of the arts, and play oboe. oboe, an instrument that i had just learned a year and a half before then.

the mornings were always interesting. i would usually hang out near greenwich village and the east village, visiting the new museum of contemporary art and the guggenheim at soho every so often, or head down to battery park and the financial district through the e line and go to the tippy-top of the world trade center. it was between july and august, and only a month afterward, i would see one of my favorite vantage points level before my very eyes.

lunchtime was always interesting. there were always five options for me. the first one was this place on irving and east fourteenth that everyone called union square. from the r or the 6 i'd hit the stop for union square; or if i felt like walking i would walk the few blocks and enjoy my lunch walking around the square, staring at the tourists, and especially the kids who were my age who wanted to do things on their own. they would see me and get just a bit jealous because i had no parents around me, just my bag and some food, sometimes a sketchpad or a journal, wandering the city.

the second haunt was south street seaport, right below the brooklyn bridge. that wasn't as crowded as most of the tourist spots -- times square, battery park city, the theater district -- and it was nice, seeing a big body of water sprawled right in front of you, and brooklyn off into the distance. cityscapes still amuse me, and the brooklyn scape is one i won't forget for a long time.

the next obvious choice was central park. somewhere in there, i'd always manage to find a spot for myself. one of the benches there, i remember, one woman would always sit and people-watch, not aware that behind her people would do the same thing to her. this one tree on the east side of the park (next to museum mile, where i would hang out a lot) had so many names carved on it. and while i would eat, there were still so many things to do: visit the central park zoo, go to the nymoma, head to the shakespeare garden, sprawl out on the great lawn, look out past the kennedy-onassis reservoir, or sit next to the harlem meer, on the northeast corner.

sometimes i would opt to walk the "fifty" avenues -- midtown -- and go visit some of the attractions there (not bloomingdale's, mind you, but fao schwarz and st. patrick's cathedral). trump tower was there on fifty-seventh, and i'd take in the view from there sometimes, after grabbing food from little italy or chinatown.

finally, my favorite place, where i spent a lot of my lunchtimes, was washington square park. it was always so crowded; there were always so many tourists looking at the arch (an arc de triomphe look-alike-replica-dealiemabob), and there were always a lot of prospecive students hanging out near the fountain. i met a lot of people at washington square park: liam, the bastard from ireland i've grown to love and hate; michael, one of the most well-grounded people i know; robin, once the smartest girl i had ever known and the most brave (she was in the world trade center the day of); james, the sporadic hotdog vendor; and erwin, a quirky filipino who looked surprisingly like my cousin, to name a few.

i would never talk about new york after my visit. two months, everyone wondered where i was; all i could reply when asked was "oh. it was nice."

especially now, i only talk about my old prospects there. no dreams, no daily routing -- if any, never this much in-depth, no. but it gives you a glimpse of why i'm so scared of admitting that i might actually be regretting that i didn't go there. no offense to my berkeleyan cohorts; i love you all immensely and my life would never be the same without you all, but new york holds a weird place in the back of my mind. the what if tends to linger and toy with me.

then, i remember the choice i made sending in my statement of intent to register as a berkeley student. i held my breath as i closed the mailbox, wondering what would happen now that a year had passed and new york was no longer in the picture. it looked like another vacation spot, a tourist attraction, and not as the place where my dreams of being a symphony musician would be fulfilled.

a year happened here in berkeley, and life has changed so much, so quickly. i came in and the campanile was closed to visitors; now, it's stuck at six-thirty as they try to figure out how the clock mechanism works. my grades went from extremely mediocre to averagely above average. my social horizons have broadened dramatically. i lived with three unknowns who ended up being my good friends, and now i live with a friend who's turning out to be crazier than i thought. i was in love when i got here, fell out when i got back, and now i'm in a state of like that i can't even explain myself. what the hell kind of relationship it is, i don't know; all i know is that i let myself experience it for the sake of experiencing it. call it selfish; i have nothing to lose anyway.

you're still reading this? you're amazing, have i told you that?

with a collegiate year under my belt and eighteen years to look back upon, i can only think what if -- new york was so inaccessibly accessible, so near and once again so far, to use the old cliche -- what if i had taken that chance to educate myself in new york? what if i had seized life at the nuts at that very moment? what if, what if, what if.

the difference now is that i'm trying to not regret anymore. i just wonder about the facts, about the possibilities, and not dwell on them. (at the very least i'm not trying to dwell on them. it's hard, though, but that's when i have to take a step back and slap myself upside the head to get me back on my feet.) i have to accept the fact that i'm here in california for the long run, surrounded by all these people that somewhat care for me (if not at all). it's a small step in trying to find closure after september eleventh ripped everything apart and tore it to pieces, adding to the already incredible amount of stress that i had been experiencing. everyday, there's the memory i relive of new york, and then i remember that i am studying in berkeley, california, that i am in a relationship with someone from bellevue, washington, that my professor in language was born in recife, brazil, that my friends are still my friends no matter what down in anaheim, california, and that the city i had an affair with is still the same old new york city, hardened by the times and jaded to society.

it's one of my favorite places in the entire world, and that, i don't regret saying.

edit: once you're done reading this all the way through, if you could so kindly click on the comments page and say something. thanks; it's greatly appreciated.

posted by Open Source Food @ 7:10 PM