New York Anniversary

Last week I gloated about my birthday, and this week provides another brag-worthy date. As of tomorrow, I have lived in New York City for a whole year!

Well, that’s not entirely true. I technically moved my stuff into an Upper East Side sublet on February 3, a Friday I spent in the backseat with my mom and two other amazing mothers whose children I’ve run around with since elementary school. I was recovering from food poisoning and sat in the backseat for the six-hour drive. It was the coldest day of the year, and we somewhat illegally parked down the block from my home for the next four months. We ran back and forth with bags and bundles as I figured out how to properly slink down the spiral staircase to my basement room.

I say the sixth is my real anniversary because I did not spend that first weekend in my apartment whatsoever. I stayed in a hotel in Herald Square and traversed the city with my mom squad and their NYC-resident children. Highlights from that weekend include a trip to the Guggenheim, what I thought was some of the best pasta ever (La Pecora Bianca, and, in some ways, I’m not wrong), and a stroll around Domino Park before eating at a Japanese-Jewish fusion restaurant my mom and I saw on TikTok (Shalom Japan, which is very good). My friend Max showed us his favorite bar, a wood-lined, experimental cocktail bar called Dutch Kills.

New York is just so, so big. Every time I visited, I was marveled and intimidated. I was nervous when I moved. This was something I’d wanted to do my whole life, and I was finally doing it. I was interviewing but did not have a job yet. I had quite a few friends in the city already and was living with one of my best friends and another girl who would eventually become one of my best friends, too. Would I want to stay past my sublet or would this be like a study abroad? Would I find a way to fit in?

On the sixth, I said goodbye to my Pittsburgh ladies and started life in the UES. I don’t remember anything about the morning or afternoon. For my first month, I just had this stress propeller blowing me forward and keeping me moving. Must find job, must find friends, must find routines.

That night, I thought Well, I need to eat something. When I am in an unfamiliar place, I try to have places or processes from my past that center me. In New Hampshire, I was a Trader Joe’s fiend, and shopping there with Meera became a sacred ritual. Even though I had a big New York chain grocery store down the street from my new digs, I decided to go to Trader Joe’s. Where is the closest one, you might ask? In the Upper West Side, a 40-minute walk across town.

Earbuds in, I began my evening journey under light gray skies with my wheelie grocery bag, a grandmotherly tool I thought would aid me in my urban grocery journey. The TJs was nearly parallel to my home. I got to walk down my street, watching the architecture and shops get more ornate the closer I got to Central Park. This would soon be a route I would revere, showing visiting friends the Upper East Side grandeur or briskly walking parkwards with roommate Leah during lunch. I could not believe my new neighborhood was so beautiful.

I arrived at the park, and the path across was not a straight or flat one. Despite the cold, I faced runners, walkers, and meanderers of both human and canine species. I was already exhausted from this walk after the majority of my New Hampshire walking was on a treadmill or in the few minutes from a parking lot. I watched a bus zip past me and I questioned my motives.

Eventually, I make it to the Upper West Side, similarly grand and idyllic. I walked into Trader Joe’s, what used to be my serene, safe space of suburbia, to absolute pandemonium. The low ceilings were held up by shelves holding food of a different layout than my old store. There were so many people milling about that I realized the line snaked through the entire floor. Bewildered, I joined the back of the line where a staffer held a back-of-the-line sign. I was in shock, but the line moved moderately quickly. Passing by low-stocked or completely gutted sections, I threw food in my wheelie bag, unsure of what kind of cooking I’d do without my girlfriend around.

I cannot overstate how stressful this shopping experience was. Everyone else seemed to know how to deal with it, but I was paralyzed and getting such a bad haul after hauling my a** over to this store. The floors were so dirty, my shoes were already scuffed up, and this was my first of many messages that I needed to get used to this or get out. I felt so unwelcome and untrained, like a goldendoodle running behind wolves. All of the stress I had about moving here felt validated in this moment. Yes, I wanted to do this, but, boy, will it be tough. I could have cried!

This and other NYC TJs had someone atop a ladder directing shoppers to one of 20 checkout counters. I scooched to my assigned lane and started bagging my wheelie cart. As all Trader Joe’s workers are required to do, this man started talking to me, this time about how busy the store was. I asked if it was always like this to which he said yes and asked if it was my first time.

Being the person I am, I admitted this was my first day living here. His response? Congratulations! The city welcomes you! as if he were a mystical figure I encountered along my hero’s journey. I continued talking to him and left the store giggling about how I now live in a movie, an experience many delusional (and possibly destructive) transplants have.

Only this time, I had to walk back. The sun was almost gone, and I was all alone for the majority of my walk. Dragging my wheelie bag, I traversed the park under every lit path, looking left towards a Harlem shrouded in darkness and right towards dark red goodbyes at the bottom of  the skyline ahead. I was in awe that I made it out alive, finally enjoying the start of a New York night without knowing when my last would be. Truthfully, I don’t remember what I did for the rest of the night.

This was my first of many exploratory walks as a New York resident and the beginning of lower-body soreness for three weeks straight (and maybe the vehicle for three months straight of random sickness, which I don’t really get anymore). Walking became how I spent alone time, learned about my new home, and appreciated the world around me. It was a free activity for the next few weeks of unemployment. I would get lost and find new fun things. Even today, I walk in circles out of most train stations trying to figure out the right way to go.

Everything was just the biggest and the best it could be every time I visited, and living here continued that feeling. The people on the street just looked and seemed better than me. How do I as an insufferable person yearning for attention move somewhere knowing I will just blend in? The thrill of anonymity was part of the allure of moving here, but I still came in wanting to make some mark on the city the way it will mark my life.

I quickly learned that my insatiable appetite for experience, connection, and authenticity was nowhere close to New York City’s genuinely insatiable appetite for these things. The city swallows everything whole, and its impartiality sometimes feels like everything is stacked against me. But I’ve learned that I find everything I want when I surrender and let the city show me where to go. I overshare to food service workers. I walk down each aisle of the 99-cent store. I’m the last of my group to go home after a night out. This is where I find meaning.

I like to think I adjusted quickly and well due to this attitude. In my first week living here, someone asked me for directions. In my first week! And I got it right! I think I’m the best adjusted amongst my class of transplants and love serving as a guide for those coming after me. But I am nothing compared to anyone who has lived here for a few years or even more. My insistence to be the navigator washes away in the face of a real one.

I have been incredibly lucky this year. I got a great job; I moved to a killer apartment in a fun neighborhood with my girlfriend; I make enough money to eat at the restaurants I want; and friends from all periods of my life happen to live here and nearby. Getting to write this newsletter has been such a welcome surprise.

Now with the newbie shine wearing off (in the eyes of other transplants, of course), I have some goals for the next year. As satisfied as I am with my social circle, I need to figure out how to expand it to fewer less transplants of my brand. I should find better ways to give back to the communities I work and play in. I still feel like I’m not living up to my potential, a constant affliction of someone living here.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed that I haven’t called myself a New Yorker in this edition. I live here and love it deeply, but I am not a New Yorker yet. I need more time to cook. Some people never attain true New Yorker status even after living here for years. I’m not sure what criteria I need to meet, but I know I’m not there yet. I have whispers of living in other cities or traveling more, but that’s not going to happen any time soon.

This weekend, some Pittsburgh friends were in town, and I hung out with the sons of the mothers who moved me in a year ago. We went back to Dutch Kills, a bar so good but I haven’t been back because I never find myself in Long Island City. Despite my increased snobbiness, this wood-lined bar remains as cool as it was when I first happened upon it.