Adapting to Normalcy.

Every time I leave the city, I feel like an inmate who just broke out of jail. Things a normal person sees daily is suddenly a novelty. Oh my god, a STRIP MALL. Oh my god, a DRIVE THRU!! Oh my god, CARPET! (Walking into someone’s One Bedroom Apartment and being able to fit 25 people comfortably was a big one this weekend in DC. Having a one bedroom so large, you don’t know what to do with all the space- unthinkable! In the NYC) You get the idea, things you don’t see on a daily basis in New York. The people you are visiting are probably going to look at you like you’re nuts (my first time out, my friend wanted to call my parents to make me move home), but they just don’t understand how different living in the city actually is. It’s unlike any other city in the country. It usually takes me a good day to adjust to the normal way of life. If my time in New York does nothing else, it will have at least taught me to appreciate the little things.

After the first couple of jailbreaks, I thought I would get over it. But apparently it’s not something you get over. Wanting to drive thru every fast food restaurant in your path from the bar back to the apartment is not normal (well, if you’re drunk maybe). Wanting to buy perishable foods in a SUPERMARKET because they don’t sell velvetta at the bodega on your block is not normal. Wanting to lie on the floor in the hall of an apartment complex because it is carpeted is definitely not a normal thing- and actually doing it? Even worse (I’m not admitting to anything, but if you’re my friend on FB, you know better).

Seriously, people (especially New Yorkers), it is imperative you get out of your normal surroundings at least once a month. It’s detrimental to being able to adapt to other surroundings- surroundings that happen to be normal to the rest of the American population. I have a very good feeling those that don’t are the stereotypical New Yorkers and now I understand why they are that way.