NYC, aren’t you going to introduce me?

After months of planning, much excitement and a few tears, today marks the end of my second week living in New York. There isn’t much to report yet. Everything is unpacked. The furniture has found a place to rest, at least temporarily. Nothing is hung on the walls, except bed sheets that, for now, are doing their best to be window curtains. It’s not the home I want it to be yet. And I really hope this city will become home.

This was also the first week I worked from the office in Midtown. To add some perspective, it was my first week working corporate business hours and commuting daily to an actual office in over a year. Even though I left Los Angeles with my work ethic intact, there will be something to miss about rolling out of bed, throwing on some gym shorts and stumbling down the hallway to a sun-filled living room to work from home. Returning to the city’s daily grind is going to be a slow adjustment. Hopefully being in the company of eight million workaholics will help nurture the process.

There are plenty of things to like about New York, but it may take some time to figure out what I like about it. So far I like never having to get behind a steering wheel. But that isn’t enough to light a fire under me and keep me motivated. With this move, unlike my last, I realize that what makes a place a home is friends. I’m going to intentionally sound like one of those over-dramatic divas on a reality competition show. When I moved to LA, “I didn’t come on this show to make friends.” I moved for an acting career, and for a year and a half I didn’t focus on much else. With that ambition behind me, I’m looking for a second chance this time.

At home in Minneapolis I had (and still have) a lot of really good friends, who two years later, can still predict what I’m thinking. Right now I’m thinking that they are what makes me still refer to their home as my home. Maybe someday New York will be home.