The day after my 35th birthday, I boarded a flight back to NYC. I hadn’t been back home since August when I booked a last-minute one-way ticket to London.

Immediately, I was back in it. Back-to-back appointments and meeting people. Dinners, breakfasts, lunches, drinks, texts, emails, communications overload. People were flowing in and out of my life and apartment, jamming into this crowded space we call time. My newly-acquired Fitbit was giving me a lot of positive feedback is the upshot. My Metrocard was being swiped. Uber was making frequent stops. I took a nature trip out to Ramapo in Jersey. Classpass reservations were made as I tried to push myself back in shape.

I ran out of gas pretty quickly. The cold I had in San Francisco followed me to NYC, persistent in reminding me that I should stop talking. Actually, I should just stop doing everything. Just stop. But it’s almost Pavlovian. I went to an exercise/boot camp/torture class at Tone House where I injured my knee to an extent where I now need 6 weeks of physical therapy. So I hobbled around to meet friends, go to birthday parties, go through my battery of doctors’ appointments, march for women’s rights, negotiate my lease transfer to a friend + deal with those logistics, and move my life out of my apartment and into Manhattan Mini-Storage in waves. Honestly, what was left of me at the end of this week was a shattered frame of nerves, even further convinced that the universe was sending me a message. Yup, I was a hot mess.

Traumatic Moments

PE Interview

One of the main reasons for my return (other than seeing friends and moving my life out of NYC) was to go to an interview with the CEO of a private equity firm. I printed out my resume, squeezed my pad thai and coconut milk-enlarged body into semi-suited attire, and arrived 30 minutes late in a panic to the Park Avenue office housed in the JP Morgan building. As I paced in the lobby, he arrived carrying some kind of racket if I remember correctly. I was led to a boardroom. It was like an out of body experience. As I was asked to explain myself and what I had been up to, I opened my mouth and realized just how ill-prepared I was to really explain this in this context. I had come closer and closer to being genuine and explaining my truth and yet maladroit in the ways of corporate communications and the art of storytelling. I tried to rewind myself to the me of May and explained my role, results, and initiatives I led. I could feel the energy being sucked out of the room, and we were empty vessels there grasping for common ground. Our mouths opened and words were articulated, but our brains were elsewhere, maybe wondering what to have for dinner or in my case, wondering if my coconut-milked enlarged arms might bust open my Theory jacket at the seams.

Moving Out

I haven’t had a screaming fight with anyone close to me in over 5 years, and yet I seemed to have many of these over the transfer of my apartment and negotiating the terms. The promised documents were delayed in making it to my management company. And then through a series of protracted texts, in-person conversations in NYC, FaceTime calls, and emails, we almost violently reached a resolution on the terms, what would remain in the apartment, timeline, and financials. It reminded me that I still do have the ability to fight, and I think I learned some important lessons.

• Stop treating yourself like a delicate flower or other people will walk all over you.
• When working or doing business with friends, it’s even more important to clearly communicate and have everything documented upfront.
• Trust but don’t be too trusting – don’t allow space for things to get fucked up.

Chicken Parm

Alcohol has been a struggle in my life at different points. It hasn’t been alcohol so much as my ultra-flexibility and willingness to just go along with things. NYC is a city fueled by coffee and alcohol, and when those influences have entered the current of my life, it has not always been healthy. On one night, I found myself at the Ace Hotel reminiscing with a friend who was in town holding “office hours” in the lobby bar. Drinks, hummus, shellfish platters abounded, and another friend arrived. I had had one of the worst days in recent memory, and I had been looking forward to a walk 10 blocks north for Korean comfort food in the form of a mountain of bibimbap. Without getting into the details, this night ended abruptly after an argument over my refusal to drink a shot. Dramatically, I burst into tears, grabbed my coat, and ran out and into a cab. Tears streamed shamelessly as the cab meandered down to the Lower East Side where I got out and went into my deli. I must have been standing and crying in front of the deli menu placard for 20 minutes before finally expressing a desire for a chicken parmesan sandwich. And that’s how my night ended pathetically crying and eating a chicken parm sandwich in the dark of my apartment. Just gloriously pathetic.

People don’t change

This is a global lesson I’ve learned. Change requires some degree of self-awareness, and very few people are self-aware. Realizing this puts an entirely new layer on the world. Really, many people truly don’t realize how crazy they’re being or how what they do impacts others. Accepting this and drawing boundaries and definitions around how you interact with different people and the world is extremely crucial for navigating it effectively and protecting yourself while remaining open.

These were forms of culture shock. And yet, all of these experiences have been extremely positive in paving the way for a reset. Now that I’ve moved out of NYC officially and learned these lessons, I am ready to rebuild and motivated to work hard again.

Great Moments

1. Eating vegetarian food and going on nature hikes and drives with my friend, Ashish. I always feel like I’m learning and growing when I am with him.
2. Seeing Peter and Alessandra. For 17 years, they’ve been family. I just feel more normal when I’m around them.
3. Kate, Sophie, Julie, and good girlfriends. There is no substitute for this kind of positive, supportive energy.
4. Eating my way out of NYC. Hitting up some of my favorite, simple, carb-filled foods like pizza, Mamoun’s falafel, bagels…oh, and that chicken parm sandwich lol.

Next Steps

Creativity is messy. I’ve been such a great corporate employee, and my next lesson is to learn how to work hard for myself and my own goals.

The way I’m currently thinking about approaching this is to run it like workstreams of a big initiative and add the structure, milestones, and deadlines I need to hold myself accountable to making progress.

1. Outline my goals in the form of deliverables and results, not activities.
2. Formalize a sort of “Board of Directors” of my life for this transition.
3. Cut/let go of those things in my life that no longer serve me.
4. Work hard again. Passion is really meaningless without this.
5. Be good to myself.