Nine years ago today I moved to NYC for the first time.

…..

Have you done the math?

…..

Right.

…..

I moved away two months later, for many reasons.  None of which had to do with living in NYC.  In fact, after the brief amount of time I was here, I realized how much I loved this place and how beautiful this city, and it’s residents, can be.  For all of the negative feelings, costs, and  lingering affects that brief time had, I have to look at the positives.  I moved away for work and to find more of it, but I always knew I wanted to come back.

Here I am, nine years later, getting ready to start rehearsals for my first off-Broadway show on Monday.  I am so grateful and blessed to be living here again and doing what I love in this city.

And, here is the kicker… drum roll please… I will be starting rehearsals for my SECOND off-Broadway show the week after I close my first one.  I have multitudes of blessings that have been poured on me and I cannot tell you how humbled and a little awe-struck I still am.  Will wonders never cease…

….

A part of me has been thinking a lot about the time when I first moved here and about how there is something that will always be missing, physically and emotionally.  Sometimes that makes me very sad. 

….

Sometimes the hardest lessons learned are the ones we need the most to move forward as individuals and as a society. 

I’m not sure where we are now, but I’m also not sure it’s so important to quantify where that place is, either.  Sometimes the best way to understand something is to give it time.  But how much time, who knows?

What I do know is that I am thankful for the present, grateful and humbled by the past, and I still have high hopes for the future.  Yes, there are are missing pieces to the puzzle, but, that only makes it more of a challenge, not impossible.

….

This is my first fall in New York in that nine years.  There are still missing pieces, but I’m finding news ones to add every day…. and I think that’s promising too.