So even though I moved to this city five months ago, Mom says that because I have a real job now .. I am "really starting my adult life". I wonder what markers could cancel this one out in the future.
I guess it takes time to adjust to any new place.. even if it's not that new. When I came here, I wanted to leave and maybe try another city, another pace, another life. Thankfully that urge is gone and I find myself lovingly spewing cliches right and left as I walk down the streets of Brooklyn/Manhattan.. "I love this city" I say to myself. While it's not the only place in the world you can walk down a street in a Caribbean neighborhood with women dressed in traditional clothing on your right and a bus of Orthodox Jewish men on your left... it's one of the few. Sometimes I almost resent the fact that I was raised so close to here .. because it didn't afford me much of a chance to move to somewhere I'd want to end up anyway.
I start my job pretty soon. Tomorrow I go in and sign all the necessary papers and set a schedule. I woke up at five thirty this morning rehearsing what I would say to the clients, how I would act, picturing what I would wear. Now and then throughout the day I practice my tone of voice in my head. I go through the motions of sounding cheery, stern, .. a Do Re Mi of emotions. I don't know how this is going to work out, which excites me and I'm sure that is also the reason I have to remind myself to breathe a couple of times each day.