Twenty Something

In honor of the fabulous Knicks making it to the NBA Finals: to New York City, and to my dear friends, who have always been my family.

It has been a very long time since I last wrote. I remember writing about flowers blooming, about the mountains turning green overnight, and now somehow, the Bay Area is already completely soaked in summer heat.

So, welcome back.

Random topic, but my favorite feature on iPhones is probably the memory shuffle from photo albums. Some photos make me burst into laughter, and some make me cry a little bit, which is always very humbling. Then I click into them and scroll through all the pictures from around that time, reminiscing, reliving, and quietly holding onto that precious little period of life again.

A few days ago, some photos from last August showed up. One of them was of me and my dearest friend walking down Broadway, somewhere near Morningside Heights, carrying huge bags of comforters and pillows to the subway station. We were moving to our next place to spend the night, just for that one night. We looked incredibly, how should I put it, exhausted but content.

It had been three months since we said goodbye to L.A., still fighting for the chance to continue our story here. We had no idea where we would end up, but we knew this city held the friends we loved, friends whose homes were always open to us. So we did what we had to do. We crashed wherever we could: on a friend’s college bunk bed, on a friend’s boyfriend’s couch, and maybe even on the floor of a tiny studio apartment, where one wrong turn in your sleep could probably count as rearranging the furniture.

Other than clicking and typing on LinkedIn all day, my friend signed us up for a job fair in Queens. As someone who personally hates wearing blouses, I borrowed one of hers because I wanted to look “professional,” which at the time meant wearing something with buttons and pretending I knew exactly where my life was going.

Not wanting to be late, the two of us split a $100 Uber and began our brave journey to find a “good job.” You have to go through the highway to get to Queens from Midtown, so there we were, sitting in the back seat with printed resumes in hand, dressed like two tiny businesswomen on a mission, when our driver suddenly told us, in his crooked English, that we had to get out of the car.

In the middle of the highway.

Confused and shocked, I turned around and saw smoke coming out from the back of the car. And just like that, two girls shot out of the doors and started running toward the side of the highway, holding our resumes like that was the only thing we have left to hold onto. 

We looked at each other and started laughing.

How bizarre. How perfectly New York.

As for how we actually got off the highway, that story is too good, so I will have to save it for another time. But since you are reading this, I am well, alive, and happily living.

So to think that I am writing this on my very own apartment, sitting on my bed with pictures of my friends and loved ones on the wall in front of me, it is too crazy not to be in awe of God’s grace to me.

If you have ever lived in the city, you know the humid heat in August can feel truly suffocating. It is the kind of heat that turns you into an irritated chihuahua, barking internally at every person walking too slowly in front of you. But even then, both of us knew one thing for sure: at least we were struggling in New York City, the Apple everyone is trying to take a bite of.

And maybe that is the strange magic of it all.

New York does not always welcome you gently. Sometimes it makes you sweat through your borrowed blouse, sleep on someone else’s floor. You cry and you cry because you can’t see the end to your struggle. But somehow, there is nowhere else where you can hold your friend’s hands and take a stroll to the deli, get a happy hour sangria and people watch for hours, most importantly, it’s not New York.

New York will give you a story, a reason to laugh before you cry, and people who open their doors before you even ask.

I hope one day you also find your “New York”, most importantly, the ones that live in it with you.

xx, Oli