Wednesday, September 3, 2014

A Place Called Home

I moved out of my parents house at 17.

Like most of my classmates, we all moved off to college and into our new dormitories bright eyed and excited for the next four years of our almost-adult lives. We could throw parties whenever we wanted. Sleep with whomever we wanted. Eat pizza for dinner and candy for breakfast. Life was sweet.

However, maybe unlike most of my classmates, I knew I was never going back.

I vividly remember being in the car with my parents when they said something along the lines of "enjoy it now, someday you'll have to come home". I told them I wasn't.

"How are you going to afford that?" They laughed.

"Watch me."

I got my first job second semester of my freshman year working after school and on weekends as I jump started my future apartment fund. I had fallen deliriously in love with New York City and as far as I was concerned you would have to drag me out by my fervently kicking feet if you wanted to see me out of it.

After freshman year I went off to be a resident advisor in a different dormitory, moving from 55th & 3rd to 92nd and Lex, summers I couch surfed or moved into friends rooms splitting the cost of rent so it was cheeper for everyone. I spent a summer on 79th and York and another in the financial district. My senior year was spent on 81st & 3rd. Post college I moved all the way up to Washington Heights.

I got around.

Last year I moved to 207th and Broadway but rent being what it is JUMPED FOURHUNDREDFUCKINGDOLLARS so we had to get out.

Short of funds and in desperate need to save money, I spent the last month homeless. But not without a home.

My good friend let me crash on the couch of her brand new HOUSE in New Jersey, my boyfriend gave me keys, as did my other partner in crime who had recently moved to the very fun (and super convenient) Hells Kitchen neighborhood.

I wasn't living anywhere. I was living everywhere.

That's the thing about New York though isn't it? When you live here, you get to call the whole thing home. No one cares about where you sleep, they care about where you LIVE, Williamsburg, Midtown, UWS, LES, SOHO, NOHO, FINI.

Your home is your post work watering holes, and your friends restaurant that you've shut down almost as much as the one where you actually work. That friend in trendy Brooklyn who lets you crash on their couch after Chardonnay induced girl talk and back to back episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. That place you met that OKCupid date and then took all future OKC dates to because it was decently priced and made for an easy escape.

I haven't really had a specific place to call home.

I've had a whole Island.

Then again, "home" for me has never really consisted of the same set of four walls.

Home has been falling asleep next to my friends watching Pitch Perfect for the thousandth time.

It's reading a good book on the hot marble of the Columbus Circle fountain.

I'm at home holding my boyfriend's hand.

As long as I am surrounded by the people I love, the things I love, in the city I love, I am home.

This past weekend I moved into a new apartment smack in the middle of Manhattan. It's a dream location and sure, it's small and I'm sleeping on an Ikea daybed in a corner of the living room. But after two days and nights it's already my new favorite place.

I have a nook to sleep in. I can take a shower with shampoo that's not travel size. I can put milk in my new refrigerator.

I might not live here for long, but that's not important. I'm living with my "ride or die" best friend. I'm ten blocks from where my boyfriend works and in the middles of a bunch of my other friend's places.

I'm sure my next year here will bring a slew of new memories both good and bad and all that's in between.


It's my new place called home.


Love Always,

Your no longer homeless .... Broken Record.