Happy Thursday Everyone! I can hardly believe it but this week marks 3 years since I first moved to NYC! If you’re a long time reader of mine, you guys will know how I’ve always been very honestly about sharing the highs and lows of my New York adventure. From the struggles of settling in when I first arrived, to the occasional bouts of homesickess to finding not one, but two dream jobs and everything in between.
Honestly, I’ll never forget those first few weeks of living here. I remember feeling so homesick and overwhelmed at the thought of setting myself up in a city where I really didn’t know too many people. Our first apartment was a month long sublet living with two guys whose names I never got to know and a kitchen that I never stepped foot in for fear of catching a disease from the piles of rubbish and dirty dishes in the sink. When I wasn’t working at my waitressing gig, I spent hours and hours in the New York Public Library applying for jobs only to get rejected time and time again. And then one day I got a call, landed my job at MTV and things started to look up. Even then with a job I could never have dreamed of getting, I still missed home constantly and called my family at least three times a day, every single day. I always think back on my first year in New York as a time where I felt like I was walking a tight rope, just a step away from wanting to pack it all in and move home.
Flash forward two years later, a lot has changed for the better but it wasn’t without it’s hardships! I don’t mean to come off as negative, but I truly want to be as honest as I can about the whole experience! Sometimes on social media it might seem that life in New York is portrayed as the place where all your dreams can come true and of course the opportunities here are incomparable, but it certainly comes with a price. Still to this day I find it hard to establish that perfect work-life balance where I can get my work done and fit in all of the things I want to do like hang out with friends, work on my blog and not be anxious all the time. I’ve come to realize that as long as I live in New York with the career that I have, I’ll never be truly able to find that balance but that’s ok! It might sound silly to “celebrate” being in New York for 3 years, but for that girl who landed here 3 years ago who didn’t think she could last the 6 months until Christmas, it’s something to be very proud of!
