Well, taking a look at the time stamp on this blog, you’ll notice it’s already May, 2012. And yes, that means Rob and I are officially living in NYC! I had planned to write this blog as a guide to moving, but life went by so quickly that I wasn’t able to keep up. As soon as we got here, we moved non-stop, as I suppose the city will do to you.
So let’s recap. Since my last post, I was still at my old job, not necessarily happy with life or believing I was in the right field (there’s more to it than that, but let’s leave the past in the past). My biggest concern about moving to New York was finding a job, and just as important, finding a job I LOVED. I was tired of working long hours, little pay, and constant, unbearable stress that was affecting me emotionally and physically. So when the long-awaited (can I emphasis long-awaited? LONG OVERDUE) day of Feb. 23 came, my last day at my old job, I had the freedom for exactly two months to do what I wanted to do and take a much needed mental reprieve. This time was filled with lots of yoga, hikes, bar hops, bike rides, fish tacos and friends. It was beautiful.
I also took that time to do some job research and came across a job posting online that seemed like a match made in heaven. The odds were against me of course. It was mid-March, I wouldn’t be moving to NYC till late April, the posting was weeks old, and I was unable to interview for it in person. I sent in my cover letter and resume anyway and was almost overlooked until I told the recruiter to look over my experience again. Surprisingly, I earned a first interview, which turned into a second and a third, followed by six online tests, an interview with the NY office team mates, and finally the CEO… and what do you know. On April 3, they offered me the job, and I was to begin 20 days later! I couldn’t believe it, but more so, I believe the stars aligned. It was such a specific field and exactly what I wanted… a low stress but active, hands on job, and best of all, better pay and fewer hours. The office is even located right off Wall Street. I feel like I scored a jackpot. Or that God was smiling down on me. Maybe New York is where I’m meant to be after all.
Landing my dream job before the move squelched a lot of my concerns and made the move considerably easier. With my dad off my back financially, and the job hunt over (although I wouldn’t call it a hunt considering I scored the first job I applied for) the move seemed so much more… simplified. I had to get through packing up my house, selling my things to unreliable craigslisters, and manually driving boxes to Rob’s place for the movers to claim; I had to suffer some roommate concerns; I had to survive a family vacation with a severe cold in the snowy mountains of Mammoth; and I had to endure Rob’s final partying debaucheries… none of it easy and far from stress free. So when April 19th rolled around, I was more than ready to leave behind my old worries and create a new life, void of everything that used to keep me down.
Except for the fact that the morning of April 19th, we arrived at the Palm Springs airport realizing we missed our flight. I’ll take the fall for that one. I was an hour off. After a few tears on my part (I was a little stressed that week) and Rob’s gracious patience to the Alaskan Air employees, we were able to book another flight that day (with just a five hour wait in the airport) without extra fees or baggage fees. It was a miracle! Thanks for the military appreciation! Once Rob and I boarded the plane with our one-way tickets, we sat next to each other wide-eyed, saying, “This is it,” over and over. Flying over the city in the dark was unreal. So much was awaiting us that we couldn’t even fathom.
Unfortunately, some more bad luck awaited us that we hadn’t fathomed either. After a long taxi-ride to our Brooklyn hotel, at about 11:30 p.m. I get an unknown call on my cell phone. It seems we picked up a Mr. Reid’s suit bag instead of our own (Rob had just bought a new one days before and didn’t happen to double check). So an angry Mr. Reid urged us to meet him in the Upper East Side immediately (for those familiar with NYC, Brooklyn to the UES is not immediate) and give him back his bag. Fortunately, he was willing to bring ours to swap. So just a walk through rat infested streets in the ghetto section of Brooklyn to the subway, to a route change, to believing I was being shot at due to construction echoes in the station, to getting lost, to a taxi ride, we finally found the right street corner and the right frustrated man. After the odd midnight exchange, we made it back to our hotel room just after one a.m., and exhausted, climbed into bed…
What seemed like a short 6 hours of sleep later, we awoke to our alarms. Apartment-hunting day. This topic is a blog unto itself and is to be continued. But trust me. For anyone planning the move, my experiences will be worth the read.
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