I Am, I Said (New York In The Rear View)

WHEELING, IL - I'm sitting at my desk away from home at the Candlewood Suites. I'm a stone's throw from Chicago and twelve hours from officially becoming a resident of Illinois, mulling over the relative merits of being a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker.....

...in the mid-West.

While I've got some good reasons for moving half way across the country, I'm feeling the same pain Neil Diamond laid down in his song, I Am, I Said. "I'm New York City born and raised and now I'm lost between two shores. LA's fine but it ain't home, New York's home but it ain't mine no more."

I've lived in the New York area all my life, made a lot of good friends there. I'll miss them all, "Making me lonelier still."