I find my happy place.

It's been one of those days.

All the parents out there know exactly what I mean - when both kids are screaming, dogs are barking, the phone is ringing and all I can tell myself is "find a happy place."

And then I started thinking...where would I go, literally, if I could choose a physical place that brings me peace?

We all have that place, don't we? The place where the weight of the world seems to magically lift off our shoulders. The place where we have a little extra pep in our step and can not help but smile.

I have two places that give me such a peace. They happen to be drastically different from each other: New York City and the NC mountains.

Let me take you to my city....

We signed the lease on our first apartment in NYC on my 22nd birthday. Our 298 sq.ft. Chelsea apartment (refering to the neightborhood, not myself) was a fifth floor walk-up with a fire escape that we would occassionaly use to sneak up to the roof and watch the cruise ships come in on the Hudson. It was too small, too old, and in a particular neighborhood that made my hubby too uncomfortable. But it was perfect...at least to me. I remember when we moved there the exhileration I felt walking along the city streets. A permanent smile was plastered on my face...in fact, I probably scared our neighbors with my over-enthusiastic grin, but I didn't care. I had waited for as long as I could remember to live in New York and I was finally there. My heart was meant to beat to the rhythm on Manolo Blahniks on the cobblestone streets of the Meat Packing district.

Can you see it? The hustle and bustle of the city. Prep school kids getting their lattes at Sant Ambroeus on the Upper East Side. The business man hailing the cab with his New York Times. The sparkling, albeit dirty, waters of the Hudson from the views at Riverside park.

Can you hear it? An expletive or two from the cabbie shouted at tourists standing too close the curb...because they will hit you. The opera singer doing their vocal warm-up beside you on the subway. The fabulous Yiddish words sprinkling the vocab of the Upper West Siders. (I miss hearing words like shlep, shmuck, and shmatte. I have no idea why they always seem to start with "sh.")

Can you smell it? The brick oven pizza from John's. The perfume of the socialites on Park Ave. The stench of urine in the subway on a hot summer day. (ah, New York.)

Are you there yet?

I had waited my whole life to be there and I was drinking in every second of it...that is, until the homesickness set in.

It wasn't until the fall that I started to feel this unfamiliar twinge of pain whenever I would hear or see certain things that reminded me of NC. It tripled in effect when the Christmas tree stands went up after Thanksgiving. (My family owns a Christmas tree farm in NC.) I would smell the fraiser firs from a block away and I would start to tear up. Bryan and I seriously had to map out where the tree stands were around our apartment so we could take detours to prevent my meltdowns. Seriously, messy crying, meltdowns. There was one occassion that I really wanted to just go close my eyes and smell the trees, no matter how torturous I knew it would be...and so I did. I stood by the tree lot with my eyes closed, breathing in the scent of the fraiser firs, and tears streaming down my face...that is, until I was noticed by the lot owner who asked if he could help me pick out a tree. I responded, "No, thank you. I don't have room in my apartment. I just wanted to smell them." I'm so glad I couldn't hear what he was thinking even if the look was plastered all over his face.

I missed NC, but I knew if I left New York I would have an equal longing for this city that had become my home.

I started running in NYC along the Hudson every day. I would tune my iPod to some good bluegrass like Nickel Creek and just run. The music of the mountains married with views of Lady Liberty. Priceless.

The homesickness faded away and by 2007 we found ourselves on the Upper East Side. So many good times.

New York City is my happy place tonight...along with this glass of wine I'm about finish. ;)

Some days I need to reflect on it, and sigh. I can end a chaotic day with fond memories of my time in a chaotic city.

Cheers.