i moved to new york city & my therapist says i need role models
my first impressions, role models, and character mood boards
In the months leading up to October, I kept a cool, level-head about moving to New York City. I told all my Seattle friends and coworkers yeah, it’s whatever, we’re just moving to be closer to my fiancé’s family, but as soon as I landed in JFK on October 30th and hopped into an Uber into the city, I felt my red eyes widen as dense concrete, brick, and glass buildings rose above me. Like Joan Didion once recalled in her essay about her own experience moving to New York “Goodbye to All That”, I felt this “conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary withstanding, has ever happened to anyone before.”
My first few nights in New York were spent on a twin inflatable mattress, shared by my six-foot-tall fiancé, 11 lbs. dog who takes up way too much space for his size, and myself. Despite the ache in my lower right back that would persist for the next week, every morning felt like Christmas morning.
On one of my first days in New York, I went to go see the New York City marathon. I ran my own marathon in 2017 in Michigan and though I didn’t feel like anything was missing at the time, I have to admit the energy at the New York marathon was unmatched. The entire 26.2-mile route was packed with people cheering for strangers like “let’s go Dan the man!!”, people sticking their heads out of windows ringing cow bells, and signs being pumped in the air that read things like “you think running is hard? try dating in NYC!” with Post-it notes scribbled with what I could only assume to be the sign holder’s phone number. Restaurants, stores, and cafes all had their doors open, blasting music and joining in on the camaraderie.
After vowing to do the New York Marathon in 2026, I came across a man taking polaroid portraits, so I took him up on his offer, to commemorate my first week in New York City if anything. We took three shots to be safe and as the film developed, I asked him where he got his 1940’s polaroid camera from and he said he had purchased it from “Luis Mendes — the original creator of the street polaroid portrait and the living definition of the New York hustle.”
When I returned to my building, I encountered a grey cat with white socks wandering the hallways. The cat walked right up to me, rubbed on my legs, and rolled onto her back. Worried she had gotten lost accidentally, I started knocking on doors to find her owner only to find out her name is Socks and likes to wander the halls on her own.
Feeling inspired by the athletes at the marathon, the candid hustle of the street photographer, and even the adventurous nature of Socks, I realized that I’d like this move to be the opening of a new chapter of my life. At the age of 27 and being a woman with the looming watch of her biological clock, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of something, like the next three to five years will be my last “hurrah” before the future responsibilities of starting a family will settle in. Before that happens, I feel a sense of urgency to feel whole and to arrive at some core version of myself.
In the search for this core version of myself, what better method than trying on different characters like costumes until one settles? This is on par with my therapist’s advice in our last session that I should have more role models. While I’m still on the hunt for who I want to be, I have created three mini mood board for each of the three characters and sides to myself I’d like to explore.
The first character exudes quiet strength. She represents the mind body connection, stability, and resilience I hope to have. The second character is a blazer-clad powerhouse. With a laptop in hand, she commands attention in any room. She is a symbol of independence and represents the ambition and drive to carve out a place for herself in this city. And finally, there’s the dreamy artist, with her wild hair and loosely draped clothes, moving through museums and late nights, searching for a quiet corner to write, sketch, or observe. This final character has always had to battle the first for time and the second for significance, but if there’s any place where all three women can thrive, it’s here in New York.
I look forward to slipping into each of these characters, letting them flow in and out, and seeing how they settle in the hopes of finding my most expansive self. Maybe one day I’ll find the story I want to live out for good, and until then, I’ll experiment—characters, plotlines, costumes, all of it —playing with lives I might call my own.