A year ago, yesterday, I broke up with the guy I was living with and told him I was moving to New York. The next day, my birthday, was marked by emtpy closets, packed boxes, anxiety and excitement.
You might say the moment I made it in New York was when I was asked to come back to my job as a sous chef. Manhattan sous chef. There's a lot of us, but the jobs aren't easy to come by, the competition is fierce and the commitment required, is, well, kind of insane. I'd say this is the moment the city had decided to give me an opportunity to stay, that it wasn't quite ready to chew me up and spit me out like I hear it's done to so many others. New York can be a difficult city, I love it, but I understand why it isn't for everyone.
But still I struggled, because as much as I want to pretend the absolute commitment to my career is all I need in life, it turns out, I really like people to be in my life too. I made a close work friend who moved to Connecticut. I turned internet people into IRL people but struggled because my schedule is so different. I slept with people for the wrong reasons, but also sometimes for the right ones. And I was lonely. A lot.
This month I went back to CA to visit. It was a whirlwind of bar crawls, restaurant visits, girls nights and family time and I was not lonely. And it was good, but at the end, I was ready to get back to New York. Ready to be HOME.
The week since I've been back has carried on with the same crazy social life I had in California. Birthday shennanigans and tweetups and silly pictures on facebook. I know it won't continue at this pace because part of the reason is that we've got a lot of January babies in my current friend group, and I'm not actually sure I can maintain my current pace of spending more nights in January out than in, but it feels like the moment where I've actually made it in New York. I'm not fully immersed back at work yet, so it helps that I'm not an exhausted mess, but right now I have a lot more confidence in my ability to make and maintain friendships than I usually do and I'm pretty fucking excited.
(Part of my feel good is also all the BiSC love going on, but I'll talk abut that more in another post)
So here's to my favorite city, staying connected to the people I love at home and new friends that are starting to not really need that "new" qualifier.
Twenty six is going to rock. I've decided.
