i miss you. i'm going back home to the west coast.

so i've decided that i want to come home in may and not come back to new york city.
i have been thinking about it since i got here, obviously. I wasn't sure if i'd stay for the summer, do summer school, get the basic certificate, or get the associates. its all been a big jumble and the reasons i wanted to come home two months ago are not the same reasons i want to come home now. its been a really dificult decision, but i think i've made the right one.
no one knows what its like living here, especially being 19 years old. new york city is not glamorous. the streets and subway stations and trains are all dirty, and very smelly. there is a very, very large amount of homeless people, and they are really different from the homeless people in utah. there are so many people. so many people who are worried about getting to where THEY need to be. there are pros to new york. the shopping is great, don't get me wrong. its ridiculous how many good shopping areas there are, expensive or not so much. the eating scenery is also amazing. i have been to like 3 places to eat more than once, everything is always a new experience. also, some of the people are wayyy nice. today me and morgan were wondering where k mart was(i needed a suitcase....haha), so we asked a nice woman. she told us where it was, then let us follow her there. she kept looking to the side of her to see if we were still walking behind her, it was so cute. she took us all the way to k mart and dropped us off. stuff like that happens all the time here. people are surprisingly nice, and very helpful in directing you (though a lot of the time, they are wrong).
it also may sound lame, but being 19 is so so hard being here. I have met one girl who is 19 and she has a fake id and parties everynight. i've met a 20 year old and that is morgan. i love her and we get along really well, but she's moving this week back to idaho. i have met a couple 21 year olds but they live with their parents and are shocked that i came here alone. everyone at school is 40+ and are getting their degree in interior design as a second career. everyone at church is 25+, BYU graduates and really, REALLY proud of themselves for living in THE BIG CITY. everyone thinks that i am a baby, and i really am.
its been such a learning experience living here. i have seen things that i never thought i would. example a. a person last night in the subway dressed in a kkk outift and a paper towel over her? face. i have truly truly been alone here. i've had to grow up pretty fast, and learn how to defend where i'm from and what i believe in. its been really hard. now that i've decided to come home, i am so excited. when i think about breathing in clean air, and seeing fields of grass AND SEEING THE MOUNTAINS, i get so happy. i am really excited for it to get warm here. i'm moving to manhattan today. i'm waiting for my driver....seriously....to come get me in half an hour. i called a car service yesterday to take me and lyndsi to the airport, and became really good friends with this italian man. he gave me his personal number, is helping me move, and told me about his wife and his two daughters. and he had sympathy for my dad for letting me come here. he was also very very angry when i told him that i had to walk home from east new york at 9 oclock on a saturday night.
so i'll be living a block from central park, in a really nice apartment in a great location on the upper west side with really sweet girls from the singles ward. it will be a nice change, and the park will be amazing in the spring and summer! i am going to live it up my last 7 weeks here.
i assume a lot of people will think that i gave up on living out here, and they may think that i never became comfortable, happy, or dependent on myself. none of that is true. i don't like new york, and i see no reason to try to "STICK IT OUT" for 2 more years if i don't like it here. i have become comfortable. i know my way around and feel fine (even when i'm the only white person in the entire subway station! i saw 10 white people all day today! and it was us and the missionaries!! it doesn't matter if yo black or white) riding the subways and navigating. and i am VERY dependent on myself. in my darkest hours (ha.) i've really had to think of how to fix it myself, and how to pick myself up. this is a really personal blog, but i just would like to put this all out here. i told katie on the phone the other night that i know i will be getting crap from my extended family about coming home. i know that they will all assume i gave up on living here, and its really sad that the people i have to worry about most talking crap about me, are my cousins.
to sum it all up, i'm coming home may 10th (i think) and i'm really really happy about it. :)