If you've been to New York, you've probably seen one of them. The perfect New York woman. Of course she's not actually perfect but on the surface, she appears to be. Her outfit is chic, impossibly clean, and flattering AF. Her hands and toes are perfectly painted without a chip to be seen. Her hair looks like she woke up and got a blow out that has defied all laws of humidity. Makeup, if she's wearing any, is flawless and unmelted in the summer heat. If she is bare faced, her skin glows like Gwyneth Paltrow after whatever bone broth facial is in goop this week. Actually, do a double take, it may be Gwyneth Paltrow. For me being someone who can't walk in heels, this perfect woman is wearing 5 inch ones and somehow crosses streets faster than the rest of the sea of people.We all have seen this woman. We all maybe find ourselves jealous of this woman and insecure in her shadow. I certainly expected to be on my return to the city but oddly, I'm not. I'm not at all.I've grown to love this woman.I have not been shy about my struggles with body positivity in the past few years since ceasing to be a skeleton of 90 lbs. Finding clothing that works for me, finding confidence, it's been a battle with myself everyday. I imagined it would be far worse moving back to a city filled with beautiful people, many striving to be their very best selves. People who are toned, sleek, gorgeously effortless walking around like it is just another day. I thought I'd hate my arms and legs and this little belly situation I can't seem to get rid of upon my return but I don't. I mean, I DO, but I'm not crying about it every day. I'm actually walking down the street with more confidence than I did the past three years.I've been raking my brain to crack this mystery. Why, in a small city, was I so low on self esteem and yet here, in a massive city, I am shouting how beautiful I am from the rooftops? Maybe it hasn't gone that far but I felt the shift within the first few weeks and started to feel myself again. I started to look in the mirror in the morning and be happy with the reflection. I've been wearing different clothes I had shunned after I gained weight and embracing shorts and dresses. How and why was this possible? I should be crying in my tiny breakfast over the fact I am not as thing as the model on the corner in the Meatpacking District smoking thin cigarettes.But I'm not.I think I love my body. I think I finally see that I am okay this way. I will never be as thin as I was and I have started to accept that. I can lose weight and tone up and I'm starting that journey again now that we are settled. I believe walking among millions of female identifying human beings once more has given me an immense gift. There are so many different types of bodies, of fashion, of female. All of them unique, all of them beautiful. That sounds incredibly cliche but honestly, sit outside at a cafe in the West Village and just watch them all go by. Fashion, hairstyle, makeup choices I would never dream would work do. Choices that clearly make that individual feel invincible and I fucking love that. I haven't felt that way in years and now, I am starting to get glimpses of it when I pick out something I wouldn't have worn elsewhere. I'm finding the fun in picking outfits and rediscovering my style with my new shape.It's not just the clothing. It's the way people carry themselves. They can be any size and are walking down the street like queens and kings. They love themselves. It's a city of misfits and weirdos, gods and goddesses, nerds and jocks, moms and dads, and we somehow all fit in. Maybe not always but today, heading to work or an audition or just out with friends, they do. We all have our nights crying about our face or our ass or our hair. But something about the city, some magic that exists here, lets us forget about it and fade into everyone else and the pulse of it all. You look up and remember where you are and it's like "Oh fuck, I'm the object of someone's jealousy somewhere in this world because I'm walking these streets" as the Newsies soundtrack blasts in your ears. Just me? Oh, okay.Perhaps its not magic. It could just be I am happier, I am more myself, I am surrounded by my tribe and my favorite places and things. I'm walking every day. I'm spending time with my husband. I don't feel like I have to prove myself like I did the past three years returning home. There's the rub. I had wanted to prove that moving home was the right decision and it wasn't which was a real gut punch. I lost a lot in three years that I don't need to recount again (just read past blogs). Loving myself was a huge part of that loss.There's a lot going on in a metropolis. Daily struggles are constant and somedays, I don't have time to remember my insecurity. That helps. I have a lot of other subjects to focus on and it is nice for it to take a backseat for the first time in a minute.What I've discovered is you need to look up. Look around at how many different types of people there are and how they present themselves to the world. It makes my insecurities and sadness over the changes my body seem less horrifying and more workable. Because we all have them. It's noticing how unique the five women I rode the elevator with are and knowing that they don't give a fuck about me in the best way. They may have had their own struggles picking out an outfit this morning but here they are, checking their phones before the work day, all beautiful in their own way and most of them feeling so because they are here and surviving and that is an achievement in itself.I wanted to be the perfect New York woman in Vermont. I'd still love to have just one day to be the perfect New York woman because, y'all, how seriously do they get dressed in the morning? Do they have a team come in? I'm  more curious than jealous because I truly want their secrets. Or at least their hair product. I wanted people to look at me the way they look at her. I wanted to feel powerful, high status, desirable. I wanted that envy because my head wasn't on straight and I was trying to stay afloat. I feel like I'm swimming for the horizon now, not trying to stay afloat but to reach a destination. I have begun to like clothes again, to enjoy pictures of myself. I want to love myself, every bit of me. I mean, who doesn't want that?No one is perfect. Even that New York cliche. I'm going to keep singing "Seize the Day" in my head and walking these streets like I own them, inching my way closer to feeling myself, to knowing myself, to loving myself, to that horizon.