In Pursuit of Magic
Growing up, I’d always been enamored with the idea of city life. Spending most of my childhood on a farm town in New Jersey was safe, quiet, predictable, and most of all, sheltered from the realities of the outside world. The most exciting occasions came a few times a year, when my family would drive to New York City - to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, to go for a birthday shopping spree in SoHo, or to see a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
From a young age I’d also had a love for fashion, often decorating entire walls of my room with magazine cutouts of beautiful runways and shots of sleek models decked in full-blown couture gowns and slinky dresses made of crystals. To me, Manhattan was the geographic embodiment of this kind of glamour - a show that was constantly changing, but steadfast in its allure, sparkle, and charm. Cringy to admit, but even as a teenager, my eyes would tear up whenever we drove to the city and the skyline materialized as we emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel. My chest swelled up with happiness as the sounds of the city grew closer. I was about to be immersed in what I craved: adventure, diversity, and bottomless opportunity.
In college, my goal was to get a job in the city, find in a nice apartment, be surrounded by close friends, and live out the glamorous dreams I’d sold to myself through magazines and dreamy movies where the city was the backdrop. Maybe even attend a few red carpets, maybe the Met Gala (if I was in the mood), maybe hang out with Candice Swanepoel in her East Village apartment on the weekend - you know. I say this sarcastically now, but with affectionate amusement for the person I was at that time - and perhaps with a sense of nostalgia, remembering the optimistic naiveté that fueled my vision of the city back then.
The five years I’ve spent here have been the most amazing, enriching, eye-opening years of my life. They’ve also been the loneliest and most mentally and emotionally challenging. When I first moved here in 2015, I remember moving into my tiny apartment on a quiet, early-summer morning, and finding a crisply spray-painted message on my doorstep. In Pursuit of Magic. For two years I’d look at that message every time I scurried out the door, and in my heart I knew that was why I was here. To find magic - in new relationships, new work, and a new, expanded version of myself.
And there was magic. There was magic in the way the sun set between two skyscraper-filled streets, and I could gaze down whole avenues for miles on end. There was magic in the late nights spent at techno clubs where the music was so loud my chest shook, my ears died, and my heart felt cleansed after dancing and sweating until sunlight. There was magic in Union Square, where many unexpected, beautiful moments fell upon me through the countless hours I spent there reading books and people-watching on hazy summer nights. There was magic on New Year’s Eve when, after scouring countless Manhattan bars for a good time without a ridiculous cover, we happened on a dance party on a 14th street subway platform that exemplified the spontaneity I’d longed for growing up. There was magic during the pride parade, when I saw how deeply this city values diversity and just how much conviction it has about the power of love and individuality.
I’m deeply grateful for those moments. But coming back to the city after three months of being away - spending one month in Lisbon and then two months with my parents during the lockdown - I’m starting to notice more of the price I pay for them. Throughout these spurts of energy and excitement have been undertones of isolation, stress, and anxiety that have felt like constant background noise, like the rumbling of the subway late at night. For years I held steadfast in my belief that this was still the place for me - I just needed to figure it out. All the pieces of the puzzle were there - friends, work, apartment - but somehow, they didn’t seem to fit together. And though there were certainly bits of time when I felt a sense of contentment, for much of my time here, I’ve felt like there was something missing.
On my 27th birthday a last weekend, three of my closest friends who live outside NYC surprised me at my parent’s house in New Jersey. (Surprised is a nice way of putting it. Technically they blindfolded me, kidnapped me, and carried me to their car - to go canoeing). Seeing them, I was suddenly jolted out of the strange anxiety I’d been floating through the past few years. For a day, I remembered what belonging felt like. What it felt like to be around people who truly know you, who don’t give a shit about what you do for work. While we canoed through a small river just outside of Princeton and soaked in the stillness of rural life, one of my friends said to me, “you don’t have to prove to anyone that you can ‘make it’ in New York”.
Her saying that made me realize the simple truth that I was still trying to prove to myself that I could make New York everything I thought it’d be. But with the constant stress of the city - its hectic and aggressive commuting schedule, its culture of work being nearly synonymous with identity, and its ridiculously high cost of living (my grocery store charges $3.50 per apple) - my innocently optimistic vision of the city has drifted farther and farther away. Call me jaded, or perhaps just more realistic, but the things I once loved about the city now look different. Glamour = high cost of living, hustle and bustle = rat race, endless opportunity = highly competitive work culture.
But it’s that thing that’s missing that weighs on me most. And looking back on moments where I felt that missing piece click into place, having also caught a glimpse of it when my friends visited for my birthday, I know that missing piece is a sense of community. For years, I found myself drifting from place to place, feeling unanchored, unfocused, and untethered in a way that felt more alone than free.
All that to say that this is not just the fault of my environment. These things take time, patience, consistency, commitment, and even a bit of a luck - and I’ll admit to being impatient, inconsistent, and uncommitted at times, in small ways that make a big difference.
I still love this city - now, I just think you need a strong reason to be here. Years ago, being in the most diverse city in the world was reason enough. But tonight, as I was riding the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn with my ridiculously-overpriced groceries in hand for the 2349th time, I had one question looming in my mind: Why am I here?
Even still, I’m not sure what will happen these next few months. I’m not set on leaving, but I’m also no longer set on staying. And if I do stay, it would be with the intention of engaging in city life in a more focused and intentional way. But if not here, I will bring the energy and the conviction of the city with me elsewhere, and continue in my pursuit of magic with the memories and lessons I gained from my life in New York City.
