Though I had visited New York more than any other city outside of Florida, it was still foreign land to me. It's a city I claimed to know like the back of my hand, but in actuality this was desire and not fact. My olive skin, dark hair, and Sopranos-esque sense of humor stood out in northwest Florida. Blending with the crowd wasn't what I wanted; it's that I never really clicked with Southern tradition and always felt like a Yankee being raised in Dixieland. I preferred toast to biscuits, would rather pay someone to fix my car than work on it myself, and refused to allow the word "y'all" to enter my vernacular (I had no New Year's resolution this year but had made the decision to phase out the frequency of my "hey's" with "hi's" and "hello's".). And I thought my cousins' New York accents freakin rocked.
We were all in the car driving toward E. Broadway when my aunt started with the questions. What kind of program was I applying for? Masters or PhD? What did I want to do with it? Why St. John's University? What other schools were a possibility for me? She unintentionally reminded me that I had not come to New York purely for fun with family. I was on a business trip, interviewing for one of those six spots in St. John's clinical psychology program.
My interview was not for two days, however, and now was the time to embrace the greatest city in the world. It was a somewhat surreal moment when we picked up Andrew and proceeded toward an orgasmic Italian restaurant in lower Manhattan. Andrew is my best friend from Pensacola, an aspiring actor who uplifted his entire life to pursue his dream. And here he was in the car with my New York family, two distinct lives of mine united together.
The only thing better than having a best friend and family together is having them click and become one family right in front of you. Andrew fit right in with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Over dinner we all laughed together, particularly when I shared one side's incriminating stories with the other (of course, they shared my dirt with each other too). My uncle gave Andrew his phone number "if you ever need anything." And if Andrew did not have a fiancee, I would have been worried when he and my cousin Maria connected over a love for Phantom of the Opera. Of course, that night while walking through Times Square, Andrew commented that "Maria is gorgeous and very cool," and later in the week Maria told me, "Your friend Andrew is very nice. Give him my number and tell him to call if he's ever in the area." Maybe I will have to keep my eye on them; there have already been enough jokes about Andrew figuring out a way to legally become a part of my family.
Two days later I was walking across the snow-dampened grounds of St. John's. I found the waiting room for all the applicants, but being an hour early I searched for a bathroom to check myself out. I barely recognized the person in front of me. His face was clean-shaven for the first time in over a year. His cheeks were beginning to regain the color in them lost from the dramatic climate change. He was wearing a suit and tie. He looked like a man on a mission: confident, poised, and ambitious.
I can think of a hundred reasons for why my interview went so splendidly. I didn't overthink my answers and was honest. I came in not expecting much and was not worried about screwing up. I stood out as the only male and southerner in my group. The faculty were easygoing and attentive. But most importantly, the campus, the students, and the weekend I had spent with family: they all made me feel like I had traveled 1,200 miles to find home.
No comments:
Post a Comment