My First Week In New York

Heads up, I'm about to get real real right here.

What a weird fever dream of a week. Its been quite a long time coming to be in the city that never sleeps. All of the To-Do lists that I have been crafting since December have finally all been completed. I have worked so hard, and I am so proud of myself. I have taken the final drive from Wilmington and have found my new chapter in Astoria. I have been so focused on moving that I kind of forgot to plan what's going to happen now that I am here. As I sit here sipping five-dollar sangria during a happy hour special I find that the entire world is ahead of me, and that is both frightening and exhilarating. I have this thirst for life that I have not had in a really long time, and that, of course, only came after the mental breakdown I have been waiting for. Last night was the loneliest I have felt in a really long time, and that's really funny because for the first time my significant other was right downstairs. (he’s amazing and I'm so lucky to have him so close finally) but it wasn’t loneliness that could be cured by a hug from a loved one it was a loneliness that I needed to deal with head-on. It was a loneliness that I was feeling from within. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself, wondering if I had just made an irreparable decision. I was spiraling, kind of like I used to in high school trying to pick a college. It was all too familiar and I was all too frustrated with my patterns of destructive behavior emerging again. I sat there in my new bed in my new four walls and cried and cried, and then got so angry. How was it that I had only been here 72 hours and I was already taking myself out the game. I sat up, wiped my eyes and wrote myself this:

If I can’t get out of my own way, how am I going to accomplish anything?

Forcing myself to do the thing that’s hard or uncomfortable is the only way I’m actually going to make something of myself.

I moved here to challenge myself. And that means I need to start fucking doing everything I can. Embracing every moment. It’s so easy to get caught up in a sitcom where you already know what happens, that the weather is “too hot” to go explore. But goddamn it if I continue to let my inner critic win then what the hell was the point of moving.

You need to get the fuck up, do some yoga, meditate maybe exercise a little, make a nice breakfast, read a fucking book in a coffee shop and move on with your damn life. This bullshit about not being good enough, it’s a waste of time, it’s literally a waste of money, and life is too damn short to mope around waiting for life to happen. You’re a pretty great person and you’ve got a lot of people that believe you were meant to do this. So instead of that being a deterrent to doing everything you want to, use it as the reason to fucking try. Try. Try everything. Leave no stone unturned. Tomorrow you will not watch Netflix until your in for the night and you will go out and explore. This is your first time in over a month where you’ve had free time. You don’t need to spend a million dollars but you can buy a fucking coffee. Seriously, if it’s gonna get you out of your head and out of the heat just fucking do it already. Also, you’ve got more money right now then you’ve had in years, you’ve worked so hard to get to this place, please don't let this “I can’t spend” thing get in your way It’s just another excuse, you can literally buy a coffee and stay in a coffee shop for hours. This is all new but it’s exciting and good for you. You can’t already be chickening out, it hasn’t even been a week. So what if everyone came to New York with the same plan, for some it actually works out, and you’ve got a leg up already, so quit your whining about how life is hard and legitimately be present. Write, sing, record, observe, move. Whatever you need to in order to make this count. You only get this one life, and you’ve come this far, don’t sell yourself short, you’re worth more than that. Please, for me.

I have never been so honest with myself before. Really calling myself out. Treating it like I was talking to another person, not to myself. It was almost freeing to pretend that this was for someone else. It was the only time I have really accepted the way that I am, the only time I took the behaviors I tried to minimize and shed light on them. I said all the things I had been terrified to admit to myself that I do. There was nowhere to hide because there is no other person I know better than me. I know all my tricks, all my games and I wasn’t going to let me get away with this.

I’ve had similar talks with myself before, but none with such urgency. I don’t have time to mess around anymore, and I have worked so hard to get to where I am. To have this opportunity to work towards the things that I only say in my head. There’s something about the air here, that fills you with hope and magic. It makes you want to fight, fight for what you deserve because if you don’t, no one else will do it for you.

I had my pity party and then had my first sound sleep in my new space. The air hitting my skin from the cracked window and the sounds of life from the street below helped me realize that this is exactly where I need to be, and I'm so ready to work for what is to come.

I woke up this morning and made a cup of coffee and did some sunrise yoga and a quick meditation. I made myself a great breakfast and drank some water. I took a shower and then got ready for the day. I made some contacts for projects I'm working on and I stopped putting off all the things that I knew I could be doing. I got a call from the job I had previously interviewed for and I start training tomorrow. It was like as soon as I accepted the fact that I needed to be present and get moving, everything started to fall into place. There are so many distractions that we can focus on in any given day, but the second that you decide to decide, it changes. You start to look at things in a new perspective, you start to find opportunities you didn’t even know were there. I’ve listened to my fair share of TED Talks and they all say the same thing: you must be present to be successful. You have to be willing to work, put in the time and the planning to really get yourself to where you want to be. It just takes one day, and then one more day, to get closer to where you want to be. Start planning, start cultivating the smaller goals you need to achieve the big picture.

As someone who literally has been in the grind for 6 months working 60 hour weeks to achieve my goal, I refuse to let myself spoil the work I have done to get to my next step.

This has been a lengthy PSA to say fucking do what you gotta do. Were all working towards something, whether it be creating an album, losing weight, starting a new career, having a baby or anything else. It's all going to work out, as long as you let yourself succeed. I believe in you, and I'm so excited to see what you’re all working towards.