It’s always funny being this little voice thinking - maybe if I scream loud enough the city may hear me. It might even pause for one brief moment and look me in the eye. Acknowledge my presence and remind me that I exist. I can stop being that creeping shadow, sliding through the bright streets, cutting into tourists pictures so someone will note that I was here, I walked these streets. Bill and Margie will grumble to their friends in Bends Oak, Tennessee - oh those New Yorkers are so impatient, this one couldn’t even pause for a moment to let Dad snap the picture. So busy in the big city, so busy. In Bends Oak I’ll be noticed, but its the tender attentions of New York City all us transplants crave for. Name in lights, top of the towers fame. The glitz of the paparazzi, the familiar winks of the maitre d’s. That’s the New York we have all come for. We don’t prepare ourselves for the stench belched out of the Port Authority or the cruel elbows of the truly busy natives when you just don’t move fast enough. The heart break that follows the shattered dream is the worst and the best thing to happen to all us hopefuls. It makes us face the mirror and either jump the bus home or dig in deeper and fight back. Claws out, teeth bared, those of us that stay are up for the fight. Even if we have to take half of SoHo with us, we will make it here. “Make it” gets redefined every couple of years from name in lights, to name on mortgage (Yea! I own a piece of the city!). But the battle scars are worth it, when that one glorious morning you wake up (or stumble home) a Native!