What I've learned is that one never really leaves New York. She follows you wherever you go for the rest of time, and you compare everything and everyone to her. I have no journal entry from this era because I was too sad and too busy to write about it, but I'll try to recount it for you here. I had miserable days in New York. I had some days that I really, really loathed that city. But I'll not be the first or last person to tell you that despite any hatred I had for the difficult city, I never felt more alive on a daily basis simply by virtue of being in a place, as I did when that city enveloped me. It is a place like nothing else. And even though I had my complaints, I don't think anyone is ever really ready to leave New York. I wasn't ready. I just had this gut feeling that my life was in Frankfurt and I really knew that I was prolonging getting started on the rest of my life and this thing that I finally felt ready and excited to be a part of. That's what I felt and I think would still be feeling if I had stayed. You know that thing that women say to you when you say you don't want to have kids-- 'you'll never feel really ready. You just have to do it and then figure it out.' Yeah, that was how it was, leaving New York for me.
The other thing that I can tell you is that this city made me. NYC made me such a freakin' BOSS. I seriously feel fully-equipped to deal with anything. Naked man on the staircase to my train, no problem-- jump over. Scaffolding blocking the entrance to your home, crawl under. Rats as big as your head, LOOK AWAY. The New York Golden Rule: Just Look Away. It's the reason that I know that despite the 'Heavy Boots' I feel today, I will come out on the other side of this better. "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere" rings true for me. It wasn't always pretty, but I always got it done. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the woman New York raised me to be. I'm grateful for the awareness, for the nerve to now defend myself, and to demand what I deserve. And when I look at the cobble-stone street in the photo above, all I can think about are the mornings when I'd be walking to work through SoHo before all the other New Yorkers woke up-- quiet and magical with no angry New Yorkers yet in sight. I'd walk on the cobblestones and every time I'd think 'You're freaking doing it, girl. Yes, you. You're doing it! Way to go, you woke, evolving, New York Queen. You go!'
You know this quote from the book and/or movie The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, when Hazel Grace is telling Augustus Waters how much she loves him. She says something like "You have given me forever within the numbered days and for that I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for our tiny infinity." Yeah, I kid you not, that's how I feel about New York. As my friend Melanie so eloquently put it, "She is a tricky Mistress," she will tear you apart but she will make you shine. There was painful rejection and trash on the streets, rats as big as your head, but she was a dandy. I know that not everyone feels this way about her, but if I'm F. Scott, she is my crazy lady Zelda, and you will never be able to talk me out of this-- don't even bother with the 'trash on the sidewalk' stuff because I've heard it, I hear it, but it's just the way I feel.
When I moved to New York, I didn't know anyone. My first friend was a 63 year-old woman, who was I swear the first Jewish person I ever met in my life, named Deborah B. I was an intern and she worked in PR, and the first time she saw me, the first thing she ever said to me was "Don't leave your purse on the floor, it makes it look like you don't respect money." And just like that, we were the weirdest duo since the Fox and the Hound. She was wonderful but a girl needs friends her own age and in her own tax bracket-ish so I spent a lot of time alone. I was a 23 year-old from Alabama. I had no knowledge of the world, of different cultures, of living alone, and of making it in publishing in New York City, but I was hopeful. And while that hopefulness didn't lead to a successful publishing career, it led me to places even more 'meant' for me. A year later, my life totally changed. I moved in with Natalie Russell, Carolyn Thorsen, and Melanie Baker and in this 20H apartment, I became the person I am. New York is not manageable without an adopted family, and just like that, I had one. There is a code of honor that prohibits me from telling the stories from that era but I'll tell you there was much wine, a lot of dancing, and so, so many hangover bagels. Beyond that, there were long talks and there was so much growth and I have never felt so seen, heard, and understood in my life. The pictures are fuzzy (I had a blackberry) but my memories are not. These were the days.
I'm forever grateful to Melanie for sending me off in such a way. It's still so insane to me that leaving New York felt like leaving home. That in the six years I was there, it became the comfy spot in the world for me. That it changed me so much that I knew I could never really go home again. That this place was/is my home. I'm forever grateful to the people and city of New York for what it meant and will always mean in my life and in my story. That whole period of my life was simple like a mountain is simple. I got knocked down so many times but every time there would be one thing in my life keeping me there. I lost my job in publishing and thought my world would end, but the girls were there. And when the girls moved away, I thought my world would end but I'd found out a career that I loved. There was always one thing to keep me hanging on, and I'm so grateful. I have to stop now or I'll never stop crying. But I have to echo Brandon Stanton who I think says it best, "To the city of New York: I had this crazy idea you would make all my dreams come true. And you did."
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