The word “new” used to excite me as a glimpse of another world. I yearned for changes to my life, which was dissatisfying in its own way. Approaching the year-end again, time is teaching me that I no longer yearn for the new as much as I used to.
It has been almost a year since I had arrived in New York in the worst state possible. Going into a job that underpaid me, coming from a break-up just two weeks prior, and entering into a ground-floor apartment with little sunlight. I knew these were first-world problems, and thinking of my grandma in rural China, I got through the difficult bumps. But, undeniably, I was in anguish.
I am having difficulty now to continue writing because, without the support of people around me over the last year, I would not be where I am today.
***
Each leap into the new is fragile, risky. To even acknowledge the action of a leap is itself a bold move.
Often, I doubt myself, thinking I am crazy for wanting that new.
Was I greedy and overconfident?
In truth I was. I am not proud of this fact; I merely want to dissect what happened through the language I know.
Neugier is the German word for curiosity, or in its parts, greed for new things. Inherent in us is an openness to ideas and experiences yet had. I would like to think that my curiosity for a funner role, a deeper relationship, or a sunnier room is normal.
Arrogant is a synonym to overconfident. In Latin, arrogant breaks down to ‘ad’ and ‘rogo’, meaning ‘towards’ and ‘claim’. In asking for something one has not yet had, one risks seeming conceited. I am not proud of my tendency to be self-centered, especially when I try to reach somewhere I long to be.
Perhaps this is all self-explaining to interpret what I experienced this past year. I got curious, I voiced my wish, I approached something new.
This journey was not smooth. On the hottest summer day of the year, I visited apartments to search for a sunny spot. (Then during the gap between my leases, I ended up in a hotel, which without the usual accouterments quickly became soulful.) Rushing out of my workplace while hiding my tears, I found solace on the High Line at sunset. (Subsequently, I wandered through the city for half a night, which would be another story.) Amid chaos around two moves and family in town, I met up with someone who mentored me seven years ago in Europe. (It’s kind of like The Sound Inside on Broadway.)
A few weeks into my second Autumn in New York, I am grateful to be working in a role that I love and feel passionate about, live in a brighter and cozier room, and am seeing people who tend to comfort and inspire me.
Thank you, God above.
But there is something new in this beginning. That is my wish to stick with the new, whichever it may be.
Having stumbled across the kind of work, place, and people I adore, I feel the desire to stay. Because I feel home.
***
Home is, however, not a destination. It is a feeling that we choose to maintain and nurture. So while my nature to get curious and ask about new things is still here, I respect its presence. I am only diagnosing an improvement – that is, while looking at the new possibilities around me, I want to remain where I am.
While my mind, body, and spirit continue to roam.
This Thanksgiving, I am traveling back to my grandma’s little village. My grandma is now ninety-four years old, still farming. She represents what I feel deeply about stability and tradition. I want to ask her all her secrets about keeping up with the old ways, while the world changes to the constant new.
***
When I return, I will recall that the only way to flourish at new heights is to strengthen senses of roots, which to me are fulfillment, hominess, and support.