Ania Grzesik: NYC: Take 2

After two years of living in Chicago, I will be moving back to New York City come January. I moved to NYC in 2002 and enjoyed living there, but when I was laid off from my job in August of 2008, I was ready to leave. I needed a change and my boyfriend lived in Chicago. But every time I went back to NY for a visit, it always felt like I was coming "home". None of my family lives where I grew up anymore in WA state. And after being a bank teller, putting myself through college, a marriage, a divorce, starting over, getting a great job, losing the great job, I did a lot of growing up in New York. It's seen my failures and successes and therefore we have grown closer together. Sometimes you really do need to get away and look at things from afar to have them come into focus. I know, I know...I'm gettin' all dramatic.

I'm excited for my return to New York, albeit with a heavy heart. Chicago was very good to me: in addition to the great friends I made that I will always hold dear, I was able to take the time to work on myself and pursue things that I never could get around to in NY. I know that I'll be coming back to New York in a better place mentally than where I would be had I never left.

So here is a small collection of photos taken between 2005 and 2010, mostly from my old neighborhood, as a tiny homage to my former and future hometown...