The City

My name is Jo. When I first arrived in NYC, I had nothing- almost literally nothing. I arrived with 2 suitcases housing mostly clothes, shoes and a bag of makeup; and $2,000 in my bank acccount. I was 22 years old with no college degree and minimal work experience.

I arranged to stay on my friend's couch since she already had a place in Queens. I had no job lined up, no apartment lined up, 1 friend, and no connections. I had moved to New York the same way that I have done most things throughout my life - on a whim. I had been cheated on in a relationship that ended about 2 months prior, and almost immediately made the decision that that was the moment which was right for me to move to New York City. But showing up broken both financially, and emotionally to a city that will swallow you alive ended up leading me into some precarious situations.

I dated a number of men who I met on tinder- some stories there lol;

and I dated one man who I met at a Halloween party in Chelsea, and he continuously broke my heart for the larger part of 2 years. I'll probably write about him a lot.

Ultimately, on this platform I will tell stories of my dating life in New York, my life and work experiences, and how I fell into the relationship that I'm in now, which is the most imperfect, beautiful, and fulfilling relationship I've ever been in.

My passions are comedy, music, love and friendships. I would gladly give advice and reviews about any of those things. So please follow if you're interested in hearing about any of what I've talked about above, and I'm sure more will spill out of me as well because I've always been a bit of a journal-er.

I suppose I'll start by telling you a little bit of my beginning days in New York. Like I said, dirt poor and no home or job. The airport had also lost my luggage so I had no change of clothes or makeup or...anything except what was in my purse with me. This mostly included a pack of American Spirit Cigarettes, a couple lighters, a couple tampons, my wallet, and phone.

Luckily, my childhood best friend had been living in New York for a few years already after she graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and she had a place with her little brother who I knew well. I pulled up in an uber to their apartment and her little brother came to let me in. We excitedly said hello despite the unsteady feeling I was having due to my circumstances, and we walked up 3 stories of stairs to this cute little old style apartment.

Unfortunately, it was the middle of summer and they were also quite poor and refused to run the air conditioning- so it was about 85 degrees and humid inside the apartment. This was really a heavy hitter being that I didn't have any change of clothes and was also on my period (if you know, you know.) I sat down and had a glass of lukewarm water from the tap over a sink filled with dirty dishes. He went into his room and came back with a small bowl packed with some weed.

Now, I don't smoke weed. Not because I'm against it or holier-than-thou, but because it really fucks me up. Like, I can barely form a sentence when I smoke weed. Like, I forget how to tie my shoes when I smoke weed. I've smoked weed probably 100 times and each time, it wasn't my best work.

That being said, I gladly accepted and we smoked weed while we waited for my friend, Gemma, to come home. I was too anxious and nervous (and also excited but, ya know) to decline anything that would take me out of my mental state. It was fun, but again I became the most confused and uncomfortable version of myself and decided to have a shower and put back on my dirty clothes for when Gemma got home, and we would go to Times Square and get $1 pizza. This was the plan since it seemed like the absolute most "first day in New York" thing to do.

We walked down to the train through her beautiful little Queens neighborhood. There were so many people, so many different cultures, lots of noise, people drinking and smoking outside of bars, restaurants, everything just a 1 minute walk away from her apartment. I was filled with joy and wonder and dreams of how my life would soon be once I settled in to this marvelous place.

These feelings changed a bit when we waited for the train to come for what I could swear felt like 40 minutes, in the heat, in my old dirty clothes with nothing to change into. Alas, the train did come and my wonder rushed back. I loved anything that was considered a staple in NYC. Therefore, I was absolutely thrilled to be on the dirty, crammed, slow and out of date NYC subway. It's the little things, I suppose.

When we arrived in Times Square I can say I was...underwhelmed. Coming down from my high, exhausted, and stressed. I put on a happy face and we went to the hell hole that is H&M in Times Square to buy me the cheapest change of clothes and clean underwear that I could find. I ended up with a black t-shirt dress which I believe was $8, and a pack of underwear on clearance for $4.

We went back home, had a couple of drinks and they went to bed because, well, they had jobs. In the coming days I would be all alone in their apartment while they were at work, sneaking the airconditioning during the day and browsing every job site/ free room in an apartment app I could find. It also took me about 4 days to download tinder lol. My bad luck continued, which I will tell more about in coming posts.

All of this sounds like it was the worst, but something about it made me feel good. I was 22, on my own in THE big city. I almost liked the fact that things weren't going well because it gave me a starting point that I could pretty much only go up from. I had in it my head that I would have this wonderful story of how I worked my way up in New York and built this beautiful life from the only $2,000 that I'd saved and 2 suitcases of clothes. Which, kind of happened I guess. Don't get me wrong I don't have any riches or some big impressive brand or job, but I do have what I need. I have a home, and furniture that I didn't drag home off the curb (I did that a lot once I actually found an apartment in Brooklyn.) So overall, I guess I'm on my way.

Thank you for reading, I hope you'll find my content enjoyable, relateable, etc.

-jo