It’s July 15, 2026. I graduated from college in May 2006 with big New York City lights in my eyes. There was finally nothing stopping me from going home. A home I had yet to live in, but as I’ve come to know even more deeply since then, residency is not a requirement.
Not one to wait for things to happen, I found a one-month sublet via Craigslist on 74th and York Avenue. Conventional wisdom said it was easier to find a job and an apartment once you were in the city, which made complete sense to me. My two new roommates — a lawyer and a dentist, both young twenty-somethings, were nearing the end of their lease and needed a warm body to fill the recently vacated third bedroom. It had a temporary wall and no furniture. No problem, I said! I’ll bring an air mattress, a couple suitcases, and a handwritten check for $750. Does that work?
It did! How glorious to relive these times of reckless abandon and feel grateful for the experience and the clarity they now bring. A clarity that tunes me into my own patterns while thrumming a faint hum of consistency.
The dentist and I became fast friends.
She offered to show me the City and I vividly remember our big Saturday out in SoHo. We took the 6 train to Spring Street and shopped for a couple hours. What budget?! I’ve arrived! We met up with ten of her friends for an epic brunch at Essex restaurant back when it was actually on Essex Street. It was so freaking cool. This was it. This was why I came here. All my dreams were starting to come true.
Of course, this was just one early slice of life in the Big Apple. But I was hooked. I did find said job and said apartment eventually (hear more of my early adventures on the Climbing Sideways podcast) — and even welcomed a pair of four-week-old felines to join me for the ride.
It turns out two things are pretty consistent for me: my pull toward New York City and my unflinching, sometimes ill-advised, slightly outrageous faith in myself and my ability to jump in the deep end and figure out how to swim.
The second time I moved to New York City with no job was eleven years later.
Plenty of life happened in between. One relationship fell apart in the seams of Boston and another began. I was eager for my turn to light up someone’s world by showing them the City. With my Uptown years behind me, we kept east but headed for Alphabet City. That magical place I’d dreamed of living (though never thought I’d get to) since I first saw Rent at age sixteen (thanks, mom <3).
It was as if New York and I picked up where we left off — a continuation of our forever love affair and the start of me finding myself as a writer and artist. Spoiler: a global pandemic hit a few years in, but I can’t imagine a place I would’ve rather been. Sometime in there those two feisty felines, always Big City Cats themselves, said their goodbyes. RIP my furry familiars.
What does home feel like to you?
A friend recently asked this at her housewarming dinner party. My reflex answer, which is still true, was that first return glimpse of the New York City skyline. When it’s still far off but you see the unmistakable shape of the Empire State and something tingles inside.
As I get older, I feel the nuance of that answer. Where before the big lights and tall buildings meant some kind of success, now I see extractive, exploitive machines at work touting a false scarcity narrative while so many people suffer needlessly.
This doesn’t shake my love for the City, it merely redirects it as my eyes continue to open to new truths about myself, the world — and life itself. Now, to quote one of my favorite bands, I make my bed out in Brooklyn instead.
Oh, what a mature love this chapter is shaping up to be.
Five years ago I quit my full-time job. I’m still figuring out how to grow and sustain a business. I’m a pretty strong swimmer, but life has its ups and downs. Through all the changes, I feel the City’s steadying hum.
Twenty years in and I’m finally putting down roots. I say hi to people (because I know them) on the street. I hosted an artists salon on May Day. I’m in a local writing group, mutual aid groups — even a WhatsApp chat with my building. In place of the fear I used to feel about being tied down is a calm confidence. This feels right.
Somehow I know I’ll figure out where to go next.
This isn’t my first nor my last attempt at my Love Letter to New York City. It’s only an early slice. I have a whole project folder with images and poems and the sketch of a cover — but that will come in time.
But what I can say now today, as I think about why I love New York City so much — it’s a place of possibility. I speak from a place of privilege as a blonde white woman, but anyone can find possibility here should they seek it. We are immersed in no one thing, but many things — a multitude of cultures, languages, experiences, opportunities, foods, smells, sights, and sounds. There is a revolutionary spirit that runs through this city’s streets, down to the bones of this stolen land…thrumming its hum from and for all time and space.
Today, I mark this our 20th anniversary — and tip my hat to my longest love so far, my forever home no matter the borough, New York F*cking City. 😉
A few of my NYC stats:
- 20 years ago today I moved to NYC
- 7 years spent living in 4x different apartments on the UES
- 4 years away
- 7 years living in 1x fabulous spot on the LES
- 2 years in to my (7-year?) stint in Brooklyn
- 16 total years as a resident