I realized today that, as of a few weeks ago, I’ve lived in New York City for ten years.
In 2002, I was a college senior in Mt Vernon, Iowa. I’d received a few different offers for graduate school fellowships. In the end, I ended up choosing CUNY more or less on a lark; NYC seemed like a cool place to live. So, I packed up a truck, and moved to a city two thousand times the size of Mt Vernon, and one hundred times the size of any city where I’d ever lived.
In everyone’s life there’s a handful of breakpoints: moments at which you make a decision that (intentionally or otherwise) forever and irreversibly changes everything. Ten years on, it’s dizzying to imagine the path not taken – the road that didn’t lead to this city, this job, this wife, this child, this me. I’m humbled, and somehow comforted, by the power that chance and caprice wield over the formation of the things that make up a life.
Here’s a picture I took of myself a few weeks after moving to my first place in NY, a shared apartment at 129th St and Lenox Ave:
Plus ça change….
Congratulations! I recently celebrated my 10th as well (I arrived July 2, 2002).
Thanks, Dom – congrats to you too!
You look young in this picture.
Paul – Thanks for the reminder :-/
If you weren’t so old now, it would barely be noticeable.
Congratulations on your 10 years and the path you’ve chosen. For some reason, your picture reminded me of “Home Alone” 🙂
+1
This picture is part of a series where I was doing strange things with my hair and making dumb faces. Very charming.