as of now

It's a strange feeling, being in a city that you've just moved to. That you want to make a home in, a life. It's all very exciting for me, the endless possibilities. Frightening also. I just moved to New York from Beirut, yesterday.

Let me give you some context: I'm a Lebanese girl in her late-twenties, I've lived in Beirut for most of my life except those two years when I went to Columbia University Journalism School. That's where I met my best-friend, who is letting me crash in his great Lower East Side apartment, for now. I'd been working as a journalist in Lebanon for more than five years now, and after a recent breakup and being fed-up with the social and political situation in my country, I decided to do what a lot of people have done before me: immigrate.

Hello America.

Not to talk politics here, but I have, for now at least, lost hope for my country in the foreseeable future. And maybe it's selfish of me, or unpatriotic to give up. I made this choice. Not a lot of money in my bank account, but enough to survive a while. No concrete leads on a job, but some on possible freelance work. And of course, there's this book I want to write. This novel that's been spinning in my mind for years and is ready to be written down now, I think.

You might not believe this, but in just one day, from being in Beirut to arriving in New York, my mood changed 180 degrees. I walked down Houston street at 7:30 this morning, breathing in the patches of snow left on the sidewalk, a huge smile on my face. I walked, where so many have walked before me for their dreams. New York is a city for people who want to change their lives, and I could never shake off this desire, that I want bigger things in my life.

The author of my favorite book, Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes, came to America from Ireland when he was in his early twenties. To me, his life story, which he recounts in his book, is one of the most inspiring life experience I've read about.

In 1949, my grandmother moved to New York from Damascus, after marrying my grandfather who worked in trading textiles from China and India to the United States. My grandmother was 22 years-old at the time, and had barely ever left her neighbourhood in Damascus. Suddenly she found herself living in the Waldorf Astoria, learning English, and taking lessons in how to be a good host, and how to walk properly with high-heel shoes on.

Some 65 years later, here I am, listening to music while walking down the streets of Manhattan, making me want to dance and sing out loud and skip and twirl. For some reason, when I'm in Beirut, I never listen to music while walking. Then again I don't walk much there at all.

This is why I'm happy to be here. I can block out my own thoughts when they get to be too much. I can press pause and play music and dance on the South-East corner of the street waiting for my friend to appear. And just then, I let one thought through: I've just begun the rest of my life.