Is It Tough To Be a Woman in NY?
To answer the question right away: no, it’s great to be a woman in NY. And do you know why? Not because of the thing I mentioned so often here, which is the fact that there are so many handsome guys here. You may be surprised, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about this time – although they are crucial, for they tell me I am beautiful so often. Is it about my vanity, then? No. It’s great to hear the words spoken since I do feel beautiful here. And I do feel that, for I am who I want to be here; the city itself allows me to be whomever I want to be.
In an episode of “Girls”, Lena Dunham’s character once said: “It’s a very liberating thing to say ‘no’ to the things you hate”. That’s exactly what you can do here if you will only let yourself. And believe me, once you do, you will feel just how liberating can it be. It’s truly great to say NO to something you don’t want, something that doesn’t give you pleasure, something you force yourself into and which does not give you a positive feeling inside. It’s exciting to finally arrive at a place that doesn’t make you conform to others but simply allows you to be yourself.
You don’t have to marry, have kids, do all the „proper things” if you don’t feel like it. It’s great that we don’t need to decide about it when everyone is expecting us to; we don’t need to explain our choices to anyone. And once we realize that, something extraordinary starts happening to us – we start to walk differently, we hold our head up high, we smile and our face starts to radiate. We want more, we know we are capable of more, and we do more. We change, we mature, we become aware of ourselves and of who we are. And that may be when we decide that we do want all those other things – but at a time that is good for us, not for all those people who abhor our choices, for they do throw them out of their comfort zone. You don’t feel pressured by “the society”; here, the society may ask me about my choices, but doesn’t comment on them, and definitely doesn’t tell me what I should do. And this is the thing that makes me feel free here – my head can open itself upon all those other things, for it’s not paralyzed by fear of not meeting someone’s expectations. My only fear is to be up to my own challenge and to reach the goal I set for myself. And I did set it high, knowing that I can reach it, and then I will adjust it even higher. This is what New York State of mind is all about for me – as a woman and as a human being.
