My Explicit Affair

Muggy sweaty days where the sun doesn’t drop behind the skyscrapers til 8:30, smoke of cigarettes escaping from 9-5 business women's mouths, the city below the ground that transports you to realms of possibility and adventure. Bagels. Pizza. Coffee. 

Ah yes. 

New York City. 

I’ve returned for the third summer in a row, this time instead of dropping hundreds of dollars each week, I will actually be making some. It will also be my longest duration here, two months, a chance for NYC to really test my waters.

When I visited for the second time my junior year I fell in love. This could have very well been due to what Daisy Sklar calls the “Summer Camp Effect”, (getting oddly close with the most random group of people in the shortest amount of time and creating life changing memories that more or less shape your personality forever), the fact that it was summer in general, or maybe that I was young 16 year old experiencing my first breath of freedom and adventure. Nevertheless, entering senior year after this visit, I swore NYC was the place I was going to end up for college. I loved everything about the city, the food, the art, the speed, it kept me alive and buzzing, and I only wanted more. But after the reality of tuition came in and realizing I can barely handle weather below 50 degrees, I ended up going to the exact opposite realm of the NYC college experience: San Diego. 

A city where most of one's concerns revolve around: surf conditions, why it’s cloudy in May, where the next best taco spot is and for UCSD folks, the next midterm. (As a communications major and /dance/food studies minor, I only worry about the first 3). 

During this past year,  as I immersed myself in the salty water and daily tans, observed the slow lifestyle of early morning walks and breaks from work on the beach, and fell in love with the constant 70 degree weather and no worry lifestyle, I began to see my home as somewhere near the ocean. 

When I go to a new city, I tend to fantasize about my life in the next five to ten years.

Going to New York these past two summers I imagined my future self going on runs in Central Park then grabbing a coffee as I catch the subway, spending weekends seeing the ballet, discovering late night clubs, and walking at speeds of 5 mph or more no matter the condition. If I really looked into my NY crystal ball, I could see myself in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan, or a brickstone in Brooklyn, raising city kids who knew of Ice Cream trucks, real Christmas weather, and public transit like no other

But as I grew accustomed to life in San Diego, certain visions of my future self began to shift. I could feel my 21 year old self picking up my board for a Sunday morning surf, creating a home filled with plants and an outdoor garden, prioritizing slow mornings where I could brew my own coffee and wake up to a  sunny Christmas morning each year. As months passed throughout freshman year, I could sense spending countless family beach days with my surfer skater children who would grow blonde beachy hair and drag sand into the house after school. 

These visions might sound oddly specific and may seem like I’m getting ahead of myself. I know. Slow down Catalina! I am merely of the ripe age of 18! But for context, I’ve been day dreaming like this since I was probably six or seven years old, and maybe I do tend to get ahead of myself. But it’s my mind, my world, and my oasis that I can dream of. 

Flash forward to May of 2024. I was excited to head back into the city! Two months is a long time, but I was going to be paid and get a chance to bond with young teenagers, two of my favorite past times.

But I also couldn’t shake the lingering sadness of leaving La Jolla. People a few years above me said the quarter system moved fast, but it’s hard to fathom how fast time flies until you are actually in it. I’ve felt like each quarter I blossomed into a different version of myself. As the last few weeks of Spring quarter ticked by, I couldn’t help but feel like it was slipping out of my hands much too quickly. 

But alas, June 4th came, and after a bumpy red eye to New York in which I probably slept for a grand total of 35 minutes. I arrived in the Apple Core once more. After wandering around JFK, getting a large iced coffee, and still making sure to get some type of morning sunlight, I boarded the JFK train to the subway with my overfilled backpack and two hefty suitcases. I looked out the window as I passed through the NY suburbs to the city and couldn’t help but smile. I missed it here, and it felt good to be back. As I boarded off the subway and into Midtown Manhattan at 7am, I felt… exhilarated. I was inspired to see so many runners, I laughed at the finance men in their suits, and was satisfied with my overpriced New York coffee and breakfast sandwich. I felt a buzzing in my core, an aliveness, a need to go go go, that I haven’t felt in a while.  

One night during my second time in the city my parents and our good family friend Ann walked around Brooklyn Heights, the neighborhood she grew up in. Although the Bilandzijas are west coasters for life, many times, we toy with the idea of living in New York.  Ann, who grew up in New York, told us the many pros and cons, but one statement stuck out to me, and still does to this day. 

“New York is an intense city, I mean just look at how close everyone lives here. It’s beautiful in certain moments of bonding and love, but during 9/11 and Covid, the intensity and proximity of this city makes it challenging to live here. You can feel things a lot more here, that’s when it becomes difficult”. (This is a paraphrase…. It was something along these lines though…)

At the time, I didn’t fully comprehend what she was saying. I didn’t understand it…how could I? I’m from LA, possibly the most isolated city, where our life revolves around our own little world in our own little cars. 

But after a year in San Diego, to come to New York, I felt it. I felt the intensity, the rush to never stop. As I walked around with my two suitcases I realized I was walking at a speed too slow for New Yorkers. I needed to speed up. My breath, my heart rate, my thoughts-everything started moving faster and faster. 

From LA to New York, this speed and lifestyle always excited me, I felt motivated and pushed. Maybe that’s because I don’t really like LA, so New York feels like a breath of fresh air. 

But San Diego to New York felt different. I felt like I was thrown into the middle of a boxing match, unprepared, not ready, millions of eyes surrounding me, and voices yelling at me to go go go. It’s not that I disliked the feeling, but it felt unfamiliar, and I felt out of place. 

Part of it might just be me needing time to adjust. It’s been a week, and I still have 7 more weeks to go. But another part of myself is digesting that maybe, the praise and aspiration I felt towards living in New York before, is not the same. While I love this city to my core, I’m not sure I still see the same visions of 20 and 30 year old Catalina living here. 

I’ve gathered a few reasons to why this might be. 

If you have not gathered already, I am obsessed with sunlight. I need it, I crave it. It inspires me, motivates me, pushes me. I am my happiest best self in the sun. Merely two days of clouds, rain. and 50 degree weather sends me down a depressive spiral and I start begging the gods for sunshine once more. I have only visited New York in the summer, I have no idea what an east coast winter is like. Sure, I might love the first few weeks of fires and coats, but after…. I fear I would begin to go insane. 

Family. Many Bilandzijas and Makers live in SD and LA. Although I love to travel, I hate planes (read previous blog posts for reasons why), so you know, thinking of the future, that would be a lot of back and forth trips… I’m not sure if I could do my plane routine that much.

Money. Yes yes we all know La Jolla is the most expensive city in the Nation, and by no means is LA or New York that much cheaper. But here is what I have discovered. Both in LA and SD, you can find the 1 dollar taco spots, the fairly priced cafes and actual affordable thrift stores. In New York, even the Halal carts are expensive, the thrifting is like normal priced stores, and no matter what coffee shop you choose, it will be over 6 bucks. 

Nature. Sure in New York you can hit up the parks (this is one thing I do love and about New York that LA and SD need to get on, more parks please, for personal people watching and picnic purposes) and yes you can find the beaches and mountains upstate or on the coast. But…come on east coast lovers, California beats all in terms of Natural Reserves. Beach? You can access this baby in 5-45 minutes depending on how inland you are. Mountains? No biggy Just drive an hour or so. Deserts? You bet we got those too. And for a person who loves all three, pretty much equally (beach and mountains are a toss up for first place). I couldn't imagine living without these places within my finger tips. Call me California spoiled! I do not care!

Mexican food. Need I say more?

And perchance, I’m just a California girl after all. I can’t help the fact that I prefer to be barefoot a lot of the time (this is very socially acceptable in SD), that I crave to tan in the sun daily, can’t handle temperatures below 55 degrees, and  that 3/7 days of the week I crave Mexican food. I can’t stop myself from loving long drives along the coast, jumps in the ocean water when the stress of life gets too high, and simply knowing what people mean in a conversation that contains countless “yeah, no and no, yeahs” every five seconds. 

This is not me announcing an end to New York Catalina. I love her. She has her purpose and thrives (at least in the summer months). And it’s true, New York offers some things LA and SD will simply never have. Bagels and pizza of course, subway transit that is faster than cars, superior people watching that will leave you entertained for days on end, museums on every corner, and despite the first impression of cold hearted New Yorkers, when push comes to shove, they will always have your back. (SD people too, this is more an LA problem due to the isolated culture). 

As I look ahead to my 7 weeks left here, I'm excited for what's to come, what I'll be offered, and how I will transform. Although I can’t wait to be tanning on San Diego sand again, I'm being cautious not to wish I was somewhere else, and risk missing all the present moment has to offer. 

I  think what I've concluded is once again-a sensation of presence and gratitude for where I am and how much life tends to offer. It’s easy to wish we were somewhere else and feel where we live is never enough or not as exciting as some of our other favorite cities. But it scares me to consider how much I can miss based on feeling like I need to be somewhere else, when so much adventure and excitement lies in the palm of my hands. While at least I think I know where my future home base will be-I never want to be blind sighted while in a different location from all that I “don’t have” back home. 

I love the differences these two cities offer. Both fill different parts of my soul, and as cliche as it may be, I’m grateful for the fact that I can experience both. 

So as I live in one of the greatest cities for the next two months, I’ll make sure to sip up every last drop of sweetness it has to offer, and take every ounce of it with me back to the land of the Golden State.