31/40 - My Love Affair with NYC
While living in Dallas, I watched all six seasons of Sex In The City and was obsessed with one of the characters more than any other. Sure there are the leading ladies and their men, but the character that I became obsessed with was New York City. I believe that SITC portrays my experience with the city better than any other show or movie. It is your best friend and your biggest struggle. It is running you ragged and the only place where you can actually feel at home. It is responsible for your biggest heartaches and your biggest smiles.
And in early 2010, I went all-in on taking my long-distance obsession with NYC and making the city that doesn't sleep my home.
Moving to NYC was not the expected thing to do. But, if you've been reading along, at this point in my late 20s, I was not doing very many things that were expected of me.
Moving to NYC was one of the hardest things I ever did. NYC is the kind of place that doesn't respect half-hearted efforts or tourists pretending to be locals. You can't get a place to live here without already living here. You can't get a job here without having already had a job here. NYC weeds out the weak before they even show up.
It took me three tries to get to NYC. But when I finally made it, every struggle that I'd gone through made it totally worth it.
When I got to college, I realized that everyone in my social circle was someone special back in their hometown. Most of them were determined to become someone special again.
When I got to NYC, I realized that almost everyone I interacted with was someone special wherever they came from and most were determined to become someone special in NYC. We all know it is a lot easier to make it somewhere else in this world, there are a lot of cities that the top is attainable for most, but we're the kind of crazy that makes NYC the only real option.
And that kind of crazy makes this place feel more like home than anywhere I've ever lived.
I've spent over half a million dollars in rent since I moved here. I could have bought one of the bigger homes in Dallas in cash if I'd paid rent there and saved the difference. But there is one thing that even the nicest homes in Dallas don't have: the feeling that I get every single morning when I walk out my front door and step onto the streets of NYC.
It is a feeling that for me is exclusive and only available for me in NYC. It is a feeling that begins with, "holy shit, this is my home!" and continues to, "I know that whatever I think is going to happen today is going to be only part of what is going to happen today" and the finishes with, "time to put my game face on - the rest of the crazies that live here are gonna outwork me if I don't bring my best."
I've experienced ever high and low in NYC. I've felt on top of the world and I've felt like everyone I've known has turned their back on me. But the one thing I have never felt in NYC is alone. I've come to see NYC the way that the city is portrayed in Sex In The City, as a co-star in my story.
When I walk out every morning and begin my day, the city greets me with a unique version of a Good Morning that only a close friend could send. Sometimes it is a cold gust of wind, other times it is the rumble of a garbage truck coming down the street as the sun peeks over the horizon. Sometimes it is the cafe on the corner pumping the scent of fresh pastries out into the street, other times it is the old man who owns the dry cleaners walking by and bowing his head and saying good morning as we pass on the sidewalk.
I have been in a relationship with NYC since I started coming to the city regularly from Texas for work in 2007, but we made our relationship status official in Feb 2010, twelve years ago this week. As I rolled into NYC with my Uhaul, I turned onto 5th Avenue and pulled up to the stoplight at 37th street and my real estate broker ran out and handed me the keys to an apartment that I'd wired money for but had never seen. When I walked up the five flights of stairs and opened the door for the first time, I realized that half of what was in my Uhaul was not going to fit in this apartment. I paid some Ukrainian guys that I found on Craiglist to carry up boxes and a few pieces of furniture that I'd brought from Dallas. I left the rest in the back of the Uhaul and unloaded it on a corner next to a gas station in Hell's Kitchen before returning the truck.
As I walked the 50 blocks home to my little 5th floor walk-up on Thompson Street that evening, I realized that I was home for the first time in my life. This was my city. This was the stage I'd been looking for my whole life. These streets would transform me in a way no other entity in the world could.
I think Frank Sinatra is wrong. If you can make it here, why the hell would you want to make it anywhere else?
My grandpa never visited me in NYC, he told me he had no interest in the city but he did know how hard it was to live there. He said he had no idea exactly what I did for work but that if it was enough for me to make it in NYC for as long as I had, it must have been something important and he was proud of me for pushing through and building a life here.
