Gratitude.

This past week has been really challenging. It's amazing how much emotion is trapped inside my skin. Some days I feel the tautness of it, my skin being stretched to capacity, close to bursting. Feeling overwhelmed.

I am attempting to focus on the positive aspects of my life. While sulking can be genuinely liberating at times, I do try to keep it to a minimum. No one likes a sad clown.

Actually, does anyone really like a happy clown? Aren't clowns just really stupid? People go to school and train for years to be clowns. This is just one of those things that is, and will remain, completely outside the perimeter of my interests. If I met a charming man, who is perfect in every way, and happens to be in clown school, he'd better be an awesome kisser. Because that would be the extent of our relationship. Yes, I would use a clown. For kissing. If he's really damn good!

Clowns aside, I'm feeling really jazzed about the decisions I've made recently. Second-guesses and angry phone conversations have ebbed; my brain is declouding. Is that even a word? Do I care? Well, there. I just made it one.

One thing I'm really happy about is my decision to move here. Even though I am fully aware that one can be happy or sad anywhere, I feel that this town magnifies everything I feel to an extraordinary degree. I can be as happy or as sad as I wish, and this town serves as the catalyst for doing so very easily. If I'm sad and want to be happy, all I need to do is walk outside, where I am suddenly a part of the bustle. If I want to be sad, I can sulk for as long as I wish in my little apartment.

For the most part, I choose to be happy, and so I am out almost every day, walking all over, burning away the soles of my shoes. During these walks, I invariably end up on Pier A, a once grown-over weedy lot that was turned into a delightful and expansive waterfront park-pier-thingy. It is here that I can sometimes smell the salt of the water, the crisp freshness of ocean-air. I watch boats cut through the hudson river with white foamy blades, and I am witness to one of the most spectacular man-made views on this planet: the NYC skyline.

Some days I stand here on the pier and gaze at the skyline, very aware of how freaking lucky I am to be alive, and living here. Just across from me: one of the greatest cities in the world. I'm right here, looking at it.

And that's just pretty dang cool.