Three years ago I arrived in New York City with $250 to my name. I've just left with $39.86 in my checking account. And
although I’ve evidently lost from my gamble on such an unforgiving town, I’ve
come away with a few other counted items.
I’ve gone through roughly 26 debit cards over the course of
my existence there.
Wont to lose them at
every graceful taxi exit, late night bar visit, or in every deep-pocketed tote
bag, I’ve come to be on good terms with the employees at the
Union Square Citibank branch, and have batted my eyes and begged MTA employees shamelessly to allow me through the turnstiles while waiting for my latest temp card, aptly leaving me temp dead broke. As time
wore on, rather than face my identity as a raging imbecile who can’t hold onto
a piece of plastic, I blamed the city.
It was unpredictable and malicious, and that indisputable fact made it
the perfect villain on which to place all my own shortcomings.
I’ve
had 6 places of residence; 5 of which I called home within 3 months of each other.
I lost my hair from the stress of moving from a friend's couch, to my cousin's couch, to a stranger's studio to the bed bug-ridden place with the 2 guys from Craigslist to finally my true New York home. And then my hair continued to fall out from walking 15 miles a day since the amazing deal I found in my apartment was not so much a steal due to it's 20 minute hike to the subway...and also most likely from mercury poisoning thanks to my sushi addiction. I moved everything I accumulated for 3 years into a new apartment in the heart of the trendiest trendster hood - spoiling myself with a deli, a laundromat, AND a real live bar within steps from my door. I lived there for a total of one month before leaving - and leaving behind most of what I owned.
I’ve had 5 jobs during my status as New Yorker.
There was the glorified internship “assistant” position
where I first learned how to discreetly cry at work over my first failed
attempt at relationships in the city of on-to-the-next-best-thing. I thought I loved Elliot – ginger-haired and
carrying a little extra around his middle that I proudly admired in bed like a
Girl Scout badge for mastering sexual attraction to the less than sexually
attractive. (In badge form, this logo
would be a man with a campfire on his head.) I pointedly ignored his arrogance
and his hesitation to be seen with me in public, and barreled on until I learned
of his OkCupid indiscretions, indiscreetly revealed to me via text . During
this first job I learned that sexual harassment in the workplace was a
tightrope that all women are forced to walk and should be navigated with care, and I was introduced to my best friend on the face of the
Earth.
There was the corporate advertising job where I met the
humans that showed me the meaning of New York nights and nurtured my youth (read: fed me
alcohol in all corners of the city at all hours on all days of the week). I went to an album release party for a
supposedly popular country singer whose name I can’t remember, but whom I
offended by confronting him on his lyrics insinuating women are glorified hood
ornaments on his 4x4. I cried at a Bon
Jovi concert. I sang a lot of karaoke. I was happy, I was bored, I was
underpaid.
There was the “dream job” that I obtained through
perseverance and flat out stalking. I
lasted exactly a year amongst the misogynistic litany of the cult that was my
workplace. I wore all black paired with
red lips – the obligatory uniform of "chicks" in the office – I threw $3
million parties and jet-setted to Puerto Rico on business to drink and swim on a private island with Kendrick Lamar and Ellie Goulding for 4 days. I spoke fluent hipster. I was cooler than
you. And you and you. I was less happy,
I was overworked, I was underpaid.
Which leads to the underlying job that held my life
together: the restaurant job.
There’s a minute or two every day toward sunset on Union
Square West when the light reflects off the opposing buildings on Union Square
East and could blind a man. I stood at
my post as Hostess at an Asian Fusion restaurant (for white people who want to
attempt watered-down culture and overpay for it) for 3 years of my life and
waited for this fleeting moment every shift.
It was sometimes the only sure thing I saw in a week. Despite all
the pulsing and turbulence, the sun would set and that reflection
remained a constant; through broke or
broker, single or pining, driven or driven into, it was there. Sometimes during a shift I even ordered a Pad
Thai and immediately regretted it for a week. But that restaurant was my family.
And when we lost a member too soon to a ravaging illness, I never
felt so broken, but so wholly part of something truly transcendent; capable of healing powers. The
day I could finally leave the hostess stand and still feed myself didn’t feel like
goodbye. In general I now smiled less on
impulse thanks to the droves of demanding mouths belonging to tourists and locals alike craving gluten-free
noodles, but there was a hardened strength gained and living in me.
And lastly, the agency position that gave me a tribe and brought back the Kiki.
I've had countless dates; good and bad and weird and forgettable. All with good and bad and weird and forgettable men. There was that time I got out of a cab crying from my long time crush rejecting me, and I was stopped by a woman on the street who told me to never forget that my "pussy is prime time". She yelled this to me from across 14th street, and I vowed make sure it's included on my headstone someday. I remember slow-dancing by the Hudson River with ginger Elliot before Brooklyn became the Brooklyn that made you want to take up chain smoking and basic bitch shaming as recreational sports. That time I cried the ugly cry in the middle of dinner on a first date after he asked where I was from - because I still wasn't over ginger Elliot and all of our romantic dances by bodies of water. I went on a few fun dates with a semi-famous dog trainer (he's HUGE in Korea...I think. He's obviously very effective...have you met my dog, Kujo? ...I mean Leo?). When I dated the lawyer of my company and he drunkenly yelled to me at a corporate event that he was the pretty one in our relationship. I met the love of my life on a stage at Williamsburg Music Hall...and kissed him the next night off-stage at the Bowery Ballroom. I've truly hated dating in New York (and that's an article for another time entitled, "You Look Nothing Like Any of Your 13 Tinder Photos" or "Oh, You're an Investment Banker? My, Look at the Time." or "Your Nose is Whiter Than Whiskeytown on a Friday Night"), but I wouldn't trade these horror stories for anything normal.
There have been many nights I couldn’t hear my own thoughts
for the rush of the streets, the constant run or be run over mindset causing my whole body to hum with expectancy - expectant for what, who knows, but one must always be ready nonetheless. It was that same mindset that buried me in
debt and pushed me to my emotional limits. I stepped over homeless people as if litter while I was running late to work - the humanity slowly draining from me in the haste to survive. I drank wine for dinner. I bought candles instead of doing
laundry. I let myself be taken over by
the impossibility of the possibility that only New York can give.
But if New York has taught me one thing (other than mastering the most convincing resting bitch face) it’s that nothing is
guaranteed, but anything is possible.
Rain and tax may be the only sure things in life, but the souls who guide you through the storm and belatedly face H&R Block with you on April 14th are what makes it all worthwhile. And I've been honored to have had such driven, soulful, oddball, loving humans in my New York world whom have altered me in the most beautiful ways. And though relentless in her pursuit to rid you from her streets, New York will always reward you with the perfect piece of magic just when you feel like quitting her. Whether it comes in the form of the human-glue of a man who brings people together and has created a family in the name of fitness, and without knowing it truly saved me, or just a stranger with a smile and a compliment. It makes her hard to leave.
I’ve
just taken part in my final running of the bulls in Penn Station to my
appointed train track that will lead me back to my hometown and eventually back West. And as I now watch the city fade
from view, I’m watching the life I’ve built for myself – the only adult life
I’ve ever known – leave with it. It’s
scary to start over. Especially because New York is a part of my identity. It's ingrained in the fabric of my being for better or worse - and anyone who's lived and fought and loved and mourned in this wild and limitless place will know what I mean.
