In the whirlwind of accepting a job, hurriedly packing everything I owned and finding a beefy guy on Craigslist to help me load it into a U-Haul (um, that could have ended badly), I hadn't really stopped to think if this was what I wanted. On the two day drive between Chicago and Manhattan, the reality of what I was doing had time to sink in.
Um...did I want to move to Manhattan?
I did, someday, but did I want to do it this day, December 1st, 2006? That thought rattled around in my head like the IKEA dresser in the back of the truck, cushioned by garbage bags full of clothes. Rural Pennsylvania stretched out before me, hundreds of miles of highway the only thing standing between me and the scariest thing I'd ever done.
Soon, there wasn't much time for contemplating. I got terribly lost on the New Jersey turnpike, was pulled over before entering the Queens-Midtown tunnel, cried, ended up in Herald Square instead of Brooklyn, cried, eventually made it to Brooklyn and into the cozy apartment of a friend I hadn't really talked to in five years. After endless weeks of staying on couches, floors, and even in a hostel, I finally found a place to stay. How true that turned out to be. Sometimes this city beats you up before it takes you in.
Happy anniversary, New York. Here's to four more.
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