I get this question fairly often because I never shut up about how much I love New York with a fiery passion, with all my heart. I love it.
So people wonder, “Why don’t you just move to New York?”
I am a humongous proponent for going after your dreams like crazy. Don’t think too much about consequences or scary possibilities. Just go, do things, because why not?
So, I understand why I’m asked the question.
There is a part of me who thinks about moving to New York on a literal daily basis.
However, I’ve moved to New York twice now, and moved away because a job or school takes me away.
I do want to live in New York. But life is about priorities. If you get something, you often times have to give up something else.
Is living there worth giving up everything else?
I want to try to set myself up in at least a somewhat good financial position. Yes, it’s nice and selfish to want enough money to do fun things like drive to the Grand Canyon, or go to concerts, etc. But I don’t just want money for the great convenience.
I want it because having your own room in a spacious apartment where you actually have space and some quiet (by not living with a million people in a shotgun apartment), so you can think and move and act, helps you (or at least me) to write. (At least I think/hope it does.)
I’m not against struggle. I don’t mind having nothing. However, I just feel like if I’m going to struggle, I want a reason to. If I got into the BMI musical theater workshop, or the New York Musical Theatre Festival, or anything wonderful thing in New York – I would drop every single thing this moment. I’d get up from this chair, go to LAX, and not think twice.
Whatever that’d mean for me – apartment fees, plane tickets, whatever – I’d just figure it out. If it meant I could only eat once a day or that I had to live transiently in Port Authority, I would do it without question, because I’d be actively chasing a huge dream.
But to go to New York just to be there, it seems wasteful. Wasteful to not try to set myself up for a somewhat financially stable life so that I can go to school or finance (or at least partly finance) my musical if it makes it to NYMF, or any of the bunches and bunches of things/freedoms money could give me.
I was kind of a burden on my friends when I lived in New York. I tried to keep it together as much as possible. I looked for a job like crazy, but there was a dry spell when it seemed I couldn’t find one to save my life.
Sometimes I slept on the street or wherever when I couldn’t find the next sublet or didn’t have enough money for one. But oftentimes there’d be people who would let me crash with them.
When does it get to the point that you’re tired of being a burden on yourself and others, and you just decide to be responsible(ish)?
I apply to everything. I apply to jobs in New York, programs in New York – all of it. I am actively seeking New York. And I get rejected all the time. I think that’s just the life of someone in the arts – 99% rejection, 1% elation.
I don’t want to sound lazy, or like I’m putting dreams on hold forever, or like I’m completely full of excuses (though who knows, maybe I am).
I do understand the pros of being poor and hungry, and the pros of living in a place that inspires you, where you can network. But I’m tired of moving there just to leave.
I’m working on a permanent move. Don’t think I’m just kicking back accepting Los Angeles forever. I’m not. (My goodness, I hope I’m not.) I believe in being crazy and taking chances. But it’s possible I need to reign in that belief just ever so slightly and start to look at the big picture and the long game. To be willing to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.