To be living in New York right now is euphoric!
For the last month I've been staying up way too late watching absolutely maddening Knicks games, only to go to sleep afterward completely elated. The emotional whiplash has been real. Every game felt like it could end in heartbreak, and then somehow they'd pull out another win. Rinse and repeat.
At the same time, you can feel summer swelling around the edges of the city: school is ending, pools are opening, stone fruit is ripening, and we have the World Cup being hosted by the freshest mayor in America!
When I married a born-and-bred New Yorker, I adopted his sports teams. Hello Knicks. Hello Yankees. My friends and family knowingly shook their heads about those Knickerbockers.
They saw me walking blindly into a lifetime of disappointment. This was the Carmelo Anthony era. The Kristaps Porziņģis era, aka the Unicorn. I bought the Andrew Kuo Knicks shirts from Opening Ceremony. I made a Porziņģis Christmas tree topper. I had nicknames for bench players. I was a little lamb and Madison Square Garden was the slaughter house.
Eventually the suffering wore me down. We endured Phil Jackson as President of Operations and his insistence of running the triangle offense in 2015! Year after year of new roosters and cycles of hope. I shifted my affection toward basketball itself. I listened to endless podcasts while working in the studio. I adopted LeBron as my emotional support superstar. I watched him in yet another Finals while rolling around on my birthing ball the night Cyrus was born. Like many fans, the drama of the game kept me going.
It's been wild, to say the least, to watch something my husband has waited his entire life for finally happen and to see our son, who just turned seven, experience it alongside him. The Knicks won their biggest game of the last 53 years on the eve of his birthday!
In a world that often feels like we can't have nice things, it's been a joy to witness the sheer happiness that has swept through the city. For a few weeks, New Yorkers have had something to celebrate together, and that kind of collective joy feels rare and worth savoring.
