THE UPPER EAST SIDE

I was always a grateful person but I have never felt more appreciative and grateful than I do at this moment. Perhaps it's due to a flashback or a stroll down memory lane. Whatever you like to call it, whatever it is it has induced this feeling of giddiness…of innocence.

I remember walking down the same steep street, glancing at the same reflective window except the reflection I see is not the same girl from my remembrance. For the first time ever I can say I feel like a grown-up, like a woman… I know it sounds cliché but no other phrase could describe this overwhelmingly, breath-taking aura of peace and appreciation that's been infused in me. It doesn't bring tears to my eyes, it's is just gratitude at its rawest form.

The Upper East Side, a sweet clean city in such a highly polluted part of our country, The Upper East Side, an area where some of my greatest and worst memories were created, The Upper East Side, an area full of sombody's and wanna-be sombody's, the Upper East Side, an area composed of the "haves" and the "have-nots."

It's an area whose contents juxtapose each other more than Jekyll & Hyde. The Upper East Side was where I went to High School, where my intelligence was fed in and outside of the classroom. They say New York City is the best school you could go to and they couldn't be more right about that. However, I couldn't comprehend that until now.

A flashback of morning running matches repeat in my mind, except the running wasn't for fitness and my competitor wasn't a tangible object. The running matches every morning were with time… praying and hoping not to land another detention for…"tardiness." And time to this day still continues to be my biggest competitor.

I'm such a different person today than I was then and now not only can I see it, I can feel it...feel the difference. This overwhelming giddiness and feeling of innocence and naivete's has come from my soul's recognition of an adult with a re-introduction to my inner youth. A balance.

You can't be too grown-up, you can't stop from growing up at all, you can't be too nice but you can't be too mean, you can't take too much, but you can't give too much either. My relief derives from my soul's discovery of an equilibrium and all because of a literal stroll down memory lane, the Upper East Side, a landmark full of juxtapositions.