I’ve been back in New York for a couple of weeks now and I am having a hard time saying that I am settling in. I mean, I am all unpacked and I’m getting into a groove at work so it would seem that my routine is starting to come together. But I am missing some big pieces.
First off is the familiarity of the city. I have spent eight of the last eighteen months here and I expected to come back and know the city pretty well. While I couldn’t forget the obvious things, the minutiae points appeared to have escaped me. Things like the name of the restaurant in Central Park (which Google tells me is the Boathouse… sounds familiar) or locations of some of the cool places that I have been have receded deeper into my memory. There is no doubt that I will regain the familiarity I once had but I can’t help but feel a little bit like a tourist for the time being. Yep, one of those lost, confused, camera-toting and overwhelmed tourists that I pass every day in Times Square on my way to and from work. 🙁
The next thing is my gym routine. Thankfully, I live but a block away from the excellent facility that I used before. Complete with a pool and a rock climbing gym, the Manhattan Plaza Health Club a great place for me to get back into shape. I used to go at least three times a week and I really hope that my proximity to it will provide me with more of a reason to go. I think I’m going to get my membership this weekend so, if all goes well, the beginning of a good workout regime (and the end of my lethargy) is just around the corner!
The last thing is my church habits. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t been to church in quite some time… I think it has been almost two months! For some reason, I just didn’t feel compelled to go; I don’t really know anyone in my church in Toronto and I knew that I was going away. Those, of course, are just excuses and are probably secondary to the fact that church became less important to me. I read in a recent Relevant Magazine article that it’s not an uncommon thing for someone my age to experience it. Part of the thing is that, because I was born into the faith and grew up with it, it wasn’t really a conscious thing for me. Even going through the sacrament of confirmation was a tad contrived because, at thirteen years of age, the prevailing concern was fitting in and everyone at the Catholic elementary school was getting confirmed. Did I really know what it meant or what I was getting myself into? Most probably not.
So because I inherited my faith, it wasn’t something that I chose for myself. (This is where you can spin everything around and argue that God chose me.) I feel that I need to choose God. Soon, before I follow an irreversible course towards irreligion. And what better time to start than the day before Christians around the world commemorate the day that Christ died and a few days before Christians celebrate the day Christ rose from the dead. I wasn’t planning on going to a Good Friday service until this week, and I think that I am going to try and attend church every Sunday going forward.
Fortunately, I was introduced to a very excellent church during my first term here: Redeemer. The one qualm that I have with the church is that it is absolutely enormous; it isn’t quite mega-church big, but the size of the congregation is rather overwhelming. It’s tough to get to know people and get involved. And that’s a shame because I have no doubt that there are dozens of really cool people that I would love to meet and get to know there. One step at a time, though… I need to start going there first, right?
