Bye-bye Sarah Jessica

It has been some time getting used to the great adjustment/realization that I’m actually living in HOLLAND now. Bye-bye NYC, you are now a dream, an urban backdrop for overscheduled perfectionists, ambitious shoe shoppers, and amateur sleepers. I do miss the city, but I simply can’t be compared to Sarah Jessica Parker anymore. So passé. The whole sexy, perennially-dating journalist who hides her romanticism beneath a veneer of cynicism isn’t my act anymore.

I had drinks last night with a fellow American—I find expats a surer bet in terms of friendship—and she coined this brilliant phrase “immigrant moment” to describe all those yucky moments of self-doubt you’re thrown into once you’ve discarded your roots in favor of a strange clime. I think I’ve experienced immigrant hours or even days! Maybe it’s an age thing, though. When you’re older you assume you know how to act in most situations—that you’re smart enough, experienced enough, savvy—but that’s a complacent hypothesis. Cultural differences confront you with your complete ignorance and it’s almost worse than being a bottle-sucking babe—because you’re not pre-language and yet, words fail you.