Four Year New York-iversary
I haven't really done much for longer than five years in my life. My longest relationship and job both lasted about five years and I took five years to graduate college. I don't think it's because I get bored easily (or because I was behind in college), but I think that my life tends to run in cycles. Like seasons, lives change—sometimes slowly and sometimes all at once but staying in one place, either emotionally or physically, never seems to be the best option for me for too long.
Four years ago today I moved to New York City, beginning what would be a period of huge change for me in nearly every area of my life. To live in New York is to live with seemingly constant change and I've mourned losses (friends, apartments, diners, the Morbid Anatomy Museum) just as much as I've celebrated gains (friends, apartments, diners, the Morbid Anatomy Museum). One month from now I'll be moving for the fourth time in four years—back to my last neighborhood, to a studio apartment one floor below where I used to live with my mom (and where she still lives, with a roommate). Besides two years in college, I've never lived alone before and I'm looking forward to it more than I can possibly explain.
I will miss Brooklyn and running in Prospect Park; walking home from the Double Windsor, home of the world's best mac n' cheese (shh); hosting Halloween parties and Christmas Vacation viewing parties in an apartment that can hold more than two people at a time; having a washer/dryer just steps from my bedroom; my morning commute that is surprisingly chill and affords me loads of reading time and all of the wonderful memories that I've made at 636 Carlton—before and after I moved there officially.
I won't miss living with roommates (despite having been quite lucky in that department); dollar van horns and garbage truck engines on Flatbush Avenue all night long; having a very loud washer/dryer just steps from my bedroom; worrying that Mozart is annoying my roommates as much as she's annoying me; juggling shower times with two other people on the same schedule as me; trying to get to North Brooklyn neighborhoods via Subway without having to go into Manhattan first and roasting nearly year round in a fourth-floor walk-up that gets too much sunlight (yes, that's a thing).
In some ways it feels as if I've lived in New York forever and I joke that most days I feel just steps away from turning into Lillian from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But in other ways it feels as if I've just arrived and when I think I've got my life figured out, another cycle ends and I'm forced to readjust to a new reality. The good news is that this all seems to be getting easier—even as the changes and stakes seem to just keep getting bigger—and I've weathered enough change in the past to know that it's inevitable and should be welcomed, not feared. So here's to another year or four or forty in New York—I may not have any idea what those years will bring, but I'm looking forward to finding out.