The Friends I Made Along the Way
Newly single, homeless, and unemployed, I came to the city a little out of my element.
I like to plan and organize; most of my time on my laptop or phone is spent on some kind of spreadsheet platform. I’m not particularly risk-averse, but I try to be sensible. That said, I’m not sure what possessed me to rent an overpriced apartment in Queens that I found on Craigslist two days before I moved in, and accepting a job in an industry that I was fairly certain could not possibly be real but was probably actually a front for an underground drug ring in a city that I have never, not even for a moment, considered to be a place I wanted to live. Even so, there I was, in The City That Never Sleeps, doing just that and trying to find my footing again.
It was hard. I was doing the things: going to parties and bars; getting a gym membership; laying on the charm. But most everyone I met already had their daily grinds and their social circles and no one was looking to fill any vacancies, so it was difficult to connect.
Six months later, my lease was about to expire and I was tired of spending holidays by myself in a place where the likelihood of stepping in human feces on any given day is not zero, so I was planning my exit when the world shut down.
As isolating and scary and cripplingly boring as the pandemic has been, I also owe some of my dearest friendships to it. Quarantine led a lot of people to move out of the city, so those of us who were left found ourselves with no other option but to hang out with each other. For months, we lugged crash pads on our bikes to explore whatever climbing Central Park has to offer (Polish Traverse, I’m coming back for you), and rented too-small-cars to sneak out of the city in search of bigger boulders. In spite of the social distancing and the fact that none of us had really spoken to each other in The Before Times, these people very quickly became My People, and I finally started feeling like the city could be my home for a little while.
I'm writing this from sunny Florida, so of course, I did leave. The siren song playing through my minivan speakers is catchy and let’s be real: I had had it up to here with flat bike tires (how are the rest of you avoiding this??). Not to get overly sentimental, but to the Central Park Gym, know that I only weathered my stay in New York as well as I did because I had you all there with me. A series of abnormal events brought us together, and though the distance between us is now much greater than 6 feet, I hope we will always stay together.
XOXO