Now Tourists Come and Stare at Me

The Week in Selfies: 8/17/20 - 8/23/20

Aug 21, 2022

Hello! Due to wedding activities of some very dear friends, I thought I would be prepared and draft the newsletter early. But did I?!?! Your guess is as good as mine.

I am continuing on with the subscription donation project. This organization for August is Stop AAPI Hate. If you are new here (welcome!) or need a refresher about the project, you can always find more details of the project on my About page.

So, if you are enjoying this newsletter or connecting to it at all, I’d love if you would like, comment, or give it a social media shout out to help make the impact go farther. Or, if you could share the newsletter with just one other person, I will kiss you all over your face! Metaphorically. (Probably.)

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The scene was a true cliché. Two suitcases, a backpack, and no looks back.

Okay, maybe one look back. My family was there to see me off after all.

In high school, it was absolutely my destiny to move to New York someday. There were plans with other high school theatre people to go, live together, and give it a shot. To be on the Broadways, of course! Had I ever been to New York? Absolutely not. Well, not until the spring break of my senior year when my Mom and I went. We never got on a subway, we saw four Broadway shows, we barely left Times Square, we walked according to Mapquest directions (up and down one way streets), and took a carriage ride around Central Park with a horse named Sheila. I had a great time. In a car on the way to the airport, the driver looked in the rear view mirror and said, “You look sad to be leaving.” I smiled a little. He said, “It’s different when you live here.”

Next was undergrad. I moved across the state, six hours by car, from my family. Those undergrad years were…challenging. I got my ass handed to me a couple of major times and the big time dreams of my youth took a hit. Everything about my life was recalibrated. It became so much easier to not think too far into the future, to take things as they come. I still operate this way. It suits me to be open to whatever opportunities come my way, I think. I am very pragmatic. Some would say, to a fault. But I do sometimes mourn the starry-eyed optimism I had for what my life could be.

After undergrad, I spent three years living in Seattle, Washington. I’ve written about this time a bit before so I won’t rehash now. The important thing from this era is that I was very obviously in my mid-20s and learning how to become an “adult.” I also knew from the start that Seattle was not my home. An incredible chosen family, a pretty great community, but a city that was not meant for me. So, I took the opportunity to apply for grad school (drink). My acceptance call for Columbia came when I was on a bus to Ballard to pick up an auction item for a fundraiser. Quickly, I decided to go. Probably too quickly. Should have probably thought a little bit more before running off on an adventure. The opportunity came my way, and I took it.

I spent the summer wrapping up my West Coast life. There was a Seattle bucket list. There were dinners, shows, and park-sitting. There was the end of my first adult job. And finally, there was an incredible going away party. It is true that we often don’t know how people feel about us until it’s time to go. I really knew by the end of that night. As my brother drove me out of Seattle the next day to spend a week at my parents’, he saw me looking back at the city with tears in my eyes. He said simply and quietly, “It’ll be okay.” I said, “I know.”

I moved to New York on August 22, 2013. I landed at JFK around 10pm and hopped in a cab. Despite having seen a million shows and movies about NYC, I did not know to say my cross-streets when I named the destination. I had to look them up on Google maps real quick. I was in a sublet room in a fifth floor apartment in Harlem by 11pm.

2020 marked seven years in NYC. Some say that makes you a real New Yorker. Some say it’s ten years. I don’t know. What I do know is that I feel more myself in New York than anywhere else. For all the noise, excitement, hardships, for having to navigate a global pandemic alone in an apartment in Astoria, for the work of trying to build up a community that I can actually hold on to, for being seven months into another long-term unemployment, it still feels right for me. It feels like my home.

At least for now. Who knows what the next opportunity will bring?

Monday, August 17, 2020