I LOVE this City!

I had a rather difficult day in the city last Thursday. It was one of those days where everything seems to go wrong . All of you know how that goes…

Calvin had peed through his diaper the night before, so I had to do laundry that I was not expecting. I try to do laundry once every 5 days, and it costs about $15 to wash all the clothes (If I sent the clothes out to be washed, it would be about $30 – you pay by the pound). This diaper explosion resulted in an extra 5 trips up and down the 2 flights of stairs, the boys following precariously behind, and then the inevitable extra trip to the convenience store on the corner to get more quarters because the comforter didn’t dry in one cycle like I was hoping. $7.50 in quarters later (each wash and dry is $1.50, it took two washers and two dryers to fit the sheets, duvet cover, and comforter, plus the extra dry cycle…) Calvin can once again sleep in a clean bed.

The boys were on eachother’s last nerve from being in such close quarters, so I let Eli pick an outing and he picked going to an action figure and comic book store in the East Village, which sounded awesome. So we packed up and planned on making a day of it – took the subway all the way down past Union Square, and started walking a couple of blocks to find the store. The streets I picked to walk down just happened to be lined by alternative stores all selling a variety of bongs. Eli thought they were awesome and we stopped at most of them to look at the skulls or bright colors or whatever… it felt slightly awkward walking among all the hipster college kids with my toddlers and huge belly, gazing at bongs. Pretty funny and uncomfortable.

I can’t bring the stroller onto the subway by myself because it’s too cumbersome to carry down flights of stairs in the moving crowds while also trying to keep Calvin from tumbling down and Eli from licking the handrail. And so, if we ever take a subway trip, the boys have to walk. They were getting tired of walking down the creepy streets so I was coaxing them and baiting them with the closeness of the action figure store, when we came to the address… and it was a Ramen restaurant (did they only serve Ramen noodles? I didn’t check…). The store had closed. So I’m stuck in the heart of the trendy East Village with two very disappointed and exhausted buddies. We decided to go back home.

A 30 min subway ride later, we got back to our apartment where Eli promptly had to poop. I did not realize, however, that Calvin had clogged the toilet earlier with his poop, and so the toilet started overflowing while I plunged frantically and called our “super”, Manny, because this was the third time this has happened since we moved in and I felt like he should help take care of it this time…

I called Logan to let him know that things weren’t going so well, so he came home to fix the plumbing problem and then we joined him going back to the office b/c he had seen a comic book store close to the Empire State Building that we thought might salvage the day. In the 86^th street subway station, we passed a pile of vomit on the floor on our way to the train. When we reached the comic book store that Logan had only seen the display windows of, I discovered that it was filled with porn, so we stayed only in the toy isle – which sported some pretty busty super-women… And the city suddenly felt sinister to me.

Needless to say, I put the boys to bed early.

I think that days like these are what make people want to move to the suburbs. Luckily, I’ve lived in the suburbs, and I know that there are still inconveniences and setbacks and moments where it feels like everything is working against you. While the things I faced I would have not likely faced in Wells Branch, I’m not likely to have to deal with car trouble or hiding piles of fire ants or door to door salesmen who interrupt dinner or even a constantly growing yard while living on the Upper East Side. I’m so thankful that I know this.

In conclusion, I love this city! I have loved it for years, and I continue find more reason to love it. Because of that, I think it’s easier for me not to blame these inconvenient days on my circumstance, but instead to take them in stride. They are for my sanctification – that I may grow in patience, and fight the temtation to put up walls around myself and my family in hopes that I would not have to face these things. I want to IMMERSE myself in them instead! I want them to cause me to have a softer heart towards the people who live here. I want to grow in my desire to see these 8 million people know truly who Jesus is, and to see renewal come to the streets. I love this city!