Hey blog, I don't know if I mentioned it explicitly, but I'm going to go live in New York in two weeks. I'm glad we had this talk.
I've actually kept this plan mum to the world at large for a while now. It's a fun secret I get to comfort myself with when I have rude customers at work or when someone's unflattering to me at a party. Shoot, I'm going to New York in two weeks. Ta-ta for now.
On the other end, when I do tell those close to me or those it's necessary to tell it to, ninety-five percent of the time, I get, "so what are you going to do there?"
And while they mean well and could be truly interested in a proper response, apparently, my blank stare and confused response of, "live there," isn't adequate.
Or is taken as a joke...
....or is avoiding commitment....
...or is too general...
But really, that's what I planned to do. I just wanted to live there, and I figured as soon as I could after college was the best time to (a) test it out and (b) risk it.
I've actually tried to to find more justification in this plan than just being a flight of fancy. I mean, I've always wanted to be in New York. The furthest I can trace it back is around third grade, when I had this consuming infatuation with Felicity and my third grade teacher would tell us stories about his college years at Syracuse. I used to draw the Yankees logo on everything and read up on the history of Central Park. I reread The Cricket in Times Square* over and over again, even dwelling over passages in Superfudge because these kids were my age and able to explore an entire city by themselves.
Fast forward to fourth grade, where I led a group to do our project on New York from their main exports to its population density. The early 2000s were great because of the impact of Derek Jeter, the Subway Series, my black bowling ball bag inspired purse chosen because of New York written on the side, and a road trip up north for Christmas. In sixth grade, there was the summer I spent babysitting, watching Food Network, getting ideas for restaurants from the pomme frites place in Brooklyn to the fast food nickel slots akin to the 1940s dining places, and watching anything New York on the Discovery channel, like wannabe designers in line at Henri Bendel's on some sort of open door day in the wee hours of the morning and seeing how Dylan's Candy Bar came to be.
On a visit to New Jersey, one of my older cousins asked if we would like to visit the city, seeing as she had to go feed her dog. I was the only one to volunteer, while everyone sat in front of the big screen to watch Behind the Music, and I sat shot gun as she drove, her window slit open so she could smoke a cigarette, looking out at the people using black trash bags as raincoats against the summer showers. I was charmed by everything, from the small, dirty octagonal tiles that was in the foyer of her apartment building, to the creaky wooden floors in her actual apartment.
There was the summer we visited and I had enough cash on me to purchase a real Yankees jersey. The Spring Break I took in high school to visit with my mom, where we got to shop around SoHo and Chinatown, despite the snow in April. This was also the important trip where I ventured into getting bangs and shot a gun for the first time. The high school trip I took with my journalism class, where we explored Columbia University to listen to real journalists talk about how the environment was changing because of the Internet. We also passed a real life crime scene on the street, where I swear we saw a body bag. Then there was the week before I started college, exploring the Cloisters and MOMA with my sisters.
The first morning up, I sat near our hotel room's window, looking at the early morning below, comparing the width of the sidewalk to the width of the street, realizing that this place really was meant for a scared driver like myself. When we were headed back, I sat in the airport the day before my first day of class, and on the speaker overhead, the flight attendant offered an extra day's stay in the city along with three hundred dollars to anyone who would give up their seat to Atlanta. My mom joked about doing it, and while I sternly told her that I had my first class the next day, though half of me wanted her to push it further.
Then there were the endless bus drives to Atlanta reading Ian Frazier's Gone to New York and A.J. Jacob's essays, both of which made life in the city sound so mundane that I knew that I wanted to be part of it. I finally braved a look's see on my last college Spring Break, which I took with Sam and where I made her go to The Strand Bookstore and to Veselka to try a pierogi.
Granted, a lot of the idea of New York is romanticized by what I've experienced as a tourist and through literature and travel shows, but I just knew that I wanted to go for a long time. Pam asked me why I never tried for college, and I'll just be frank and say that I never really thought I could make it there in college. High school me, fresh faced and really negative, was too much of a wimp to try anything and chose her safe school, rather than go to Paris or Boston. So post-college self, I decided why the hell not?
In a conversation with a friend, I remember lying in the hallway of our house in Oxford, looking at the ceiling as he typed on the computer at a nearby desk. He was younger than me by a year or so, so he still had this zeal about life goals and college, and I was serenely calm by the bottle of wine my friend Melissa wanted me to help her clean out. But I remember him pestering me about my school choices and about my plans if I was a journalism major.
"So why didn't you go?" he asked, politely interested or astounded by my safe decisions. I couldn't tell, and I felt embarrassed and scrambled for a response to save face.
This was also the same kid who said in such a dismissive way, "everyone wants to move to New York," which I couldn't help but agree with at the time, because I actually turned my back on the idea. New York? Pffft.
Maybe because I started to hear about so many's people's plans to go after graduation. People I figured were more capable, were better writers, and were just out-going enough to do it. I turned my back on this ideal because I figured that it was just an ideal, nothing more.
Then of course, I started to see some of my friends do it. People who were closer to me and who I knew better and understood better were going, some, even without steady plans but promised internships. "Why didn't you go?" was going to be something I'd have to ask myself eventually as I read through statuses and exchanged light messages with those brave souls.
That Spring Break trip was a trial run. I needed to see if I could do it, and my aunt was kind enough to offer me boarding if I ever wanted to try my hand at it. Other than that, I had no qualms, no expectations, and no thorough goals for going, because going to New York, I figured, was what I originally intended.
"So what are you really going to do up there?" my boss' husband asked today as we cleaned up the store and got ready to close.
I felt my eyes grow wide with panic, and I started to think of the normal answers I started to tell people. I have a job lined up with my social media work, which was true. My aunt said I could live with her, which was also true. "Live there," I said simply. This was undoubtedly true.
He laughed it off, believing this to be one of my jokes. How droll! "No, but really," he started, and I saw him brave a face as he waited for a response.
"No really," I said, not wanting to hide behind my aunt or even that promise of a job, because I really knew that those were factors that just worked out. "Moving was the goal," I explained a little patiently. "There was nothing beyond that yet."
His face looked frozen on that smile, and I had a small fear that I offended him, seeing as I chose to leave for an uncertain future when they were happy with all of my work at their store.
"But you have that job, right?" he asked instead, prodding further, and I squirmed under that insistence.
"Yes," I admitted, "but even then, just being there was it."
He looked slightly doubtful but chipper for my benefit. "And what's the longest you've ever been there?" he asked, most likely making conversation but breaking my heart at my flimsy plan.
"Two weeks?" I guessed, never really putting this thought into consideration.
He nodded at that and looked off over my shoulder, clearly done with this conversation. I felt put out by his clear dismissiveness of all of it, and I racked my brain for more fuel to my move.
I have a list of cupcakeries I want to visit since I was twelve, I thought, but I decided against that justification as he walked away. I wasn't going to let him bother me.
I reverted to my current go-to coping mechanism. "Shoot," I told myself, dismissing him entirely, "I'm going to New York in two weeks." And I went about closing the store.
*first book purchase at Borders. Yeah!