This post is episode 1 in the “Becoming a New Yorker” series. Originally posted on www.swamphatched.com:
shot on 35mm by Jess Littman
“IT'S HAPPENING. Drew and I are officially moving to NYC!!! Since everything in that city moves fast, we are too...We are ready to pack our bags & hop a bus for a sublet starting as soon as next Monday, January 20th.
We are clean, we are really fun to play games with, and if you'd like we can sing you lullabies while you drift off to sleep.”
WE’RE DOING THIS
Sometime in March 2019, Drew (my man partner) and I took a walk in the woods to discuss our future. When we emerged from the other end of the trail, we had post-grad plans: we were moving to New York City. We had denied wanting to go north for quite some time leading up to our nature walk. Part of that was the very realistic fear that comes with being two Virginians who were raised in homes ranging from rural to suburban. Another part of our denial had to do with our only collective experience with New York City: lonely sadness.
WE’RE CRYING IN BROOKLYN
Drew had spent five weeks one summer in NYC in a program at an acting studio. Almost two years into our relationship, but it was the first time we had been long distance, and we were both going through changes in our daily lives. I’d just graduated from UVA; he was gearing up for a semester abroad. I was living with my parents, working in food service, missing my college friends. Drew was living in a room in someone else’s apartment, faithfully attending his acting classes, and missing his friends. Lonely.
A couple of weeks into his program, I was able to visit for a long five-day weekend. Over my stay we did a lot of fun things together, but they were all so heavily tinted by the knowing sadness that the clock was ticking and we would have to separate again that no activity was purely fun. We did some touristy things, and we visited some locals-only spots. They all shared the same undertones. Across the entire five days, we were both holding tears right behind our eyes; ready to burst with the impending goodbye. Then when we did have to part, we had to say goodbye in a cafe in Brooklyn, in the short time between Drew’s classes. Never had I ever before that day known what it was to sob in public. Sadness.
WE'RE DOING THIS
Despite all the fear, and all of the collective memories, Drew and I admitted on that fateful March day that we both heard New York City calling our names. We started to make plans to move sometime in August or September 2019: roommates, neighborhoods, realtors, credit scores…we were doing it.
WE’RE WORKING IN VIRGINIA
But then two jobs came up in VA, and it became apparent that it actually was not yet our time. We followed our intuitions, told our to-be roomies that we couldn’t be anymore, and we moved into a guest room in Drew’s parents’ home.
WE’RE DOING THIS…NOW
The move date conversationally became sometime in November, and then vaguely early 2020, and then we started telling people we were looking at the "end of January, beginning of February timeframe” to head north. Once we began speaking about the move with specificity, it became as if we spoke it into existence. Late January or early February started to look realistic, and then everything fell into alignment.
I posted the Facebook status quoted at the beginning of this story on January 13th, 2020 - about ten months after our walk in the woods. New York kept calling and leaving messages to let us know it was there for us when we were ready to make the jump, but we weren’t. Until now.