This fall was the beginning of my sophomore year at New York University. Apart from the stress and the few nights that I broke down crying from it, things have been going adequately well up to this point. New York City seems as fast-paced as one can get and it is far removed from the redundant boredom one can face while growing up in the valley. I hate speaking ill of the place where I was born and raised but it’s not as if we all don’t know it, can’t feel it.
Weekend after weekend and night after night I would ask friends, “What can we do tonight?” After a while of course, I merely asked out of habit because I knew the answer was always a definite and unequivocal “nothing”. Going to the movie theater was getting too expensive and apparently God liked to display his sense of humor in my bowling abilities so that was out too. Ultimately, I found myself roaming around Barnes & Noble on Saturday nights. That alone was sad but this past summer that I was home, I was unable to do even that because I no longer had a car in which to drive around.
So how did we get here? Well, better yet, how did we get stuck here? Why is it that teens, especially broke teens like so many of us are, find themselves staring at the TV or the computer screen on a Saturday night. Sure, we could simply go to each other’s houses and hang out there but that isn’t enough to satisfy our hunger for socializing for the entirety of our adolescence. Where’s the connection to the rest of the valley? Why is it that most of us don’t feel comfortable going to a park or simply walking around? Looking around, I’m sure most of us find the answer to be obvious.
Upon arriving in New York I instantly fell in love with walking. It wasn’t just that it was free as opposed $2.25 each way for the subway, it was that it was accepted. More than accepted, it was the custom. No one honked at me for walking like they did in the valley because here I was only one of millions of pedestrians. It’s wonderful and it’s an activity in itself. One Saturday afternoon I walked from Washington Square Park to Central Park which took me about two hours. It made for an enjoyable afternoon day and it made me feel like a true contributor to this glorious metropolis.
My point is why is it so hard for the valley to be social? It seems as if we skipped a few steps; we can connect with everyone online yet we can’t seem to connect with the people within our own community on a three-dimensional level. Why has the valley been unable to break down the barriers and why do they seem stronger than ever?
I want to keep this at a readable length so with that in mind I must end here. Don’t misunderstand me; it is not my intention to simply criticize our home. I do not pretend to hold the secrets of how to improve the valley (don’t expect “The Guide to Making the Rio Grande Valley Funner, and Then Some!” in bookstores near you). I pose these questions with sincerity and curiosity (just think of me as a bright-eyed seven year-old). In my next entry I hope to examine the possible answers to these questions (recession anyone?)and explain why, now that I’m only in the valley three months out of the year, these questions are prodding me and keep me tossing and turning in my sleep. Well, I’m in college now so I don’t sleep, but you get the idea.
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