When I was 23 years old, I packed up my Mitsubishi Eclipse, put $400 in my pocket and moved to New York City. I didn’t have a job to go to or a place to live, just a crazy notion that I have always wanted to live there.
The journey started on a day I was offered a promotion at my job. I worked internally at a staffing agency and they wanted to make me a regional recruiter, traveling to job fairs around Florida finding people to fill jobs. I was really excited about it because I hated the position I was in and thought I would eventually get fired from it.
I met my boyfriend at the infamous Cactus Club on Mills Avenue after work to tell him the good news. Before I could get a word out, he looked me in the eyes and declared he wanted us to move to Manhattan. I agreed, without telling him about the promotion. The next day I turned it down.
I will never forget that feeling I had when we arrived in NY. Windows down, music blaring and me driving through Time Square. It was electric.
Reality quickly set in. I had no job, no permanent place to stay and there I was with a $350 car payment and alternate side of the street parking in the winter. The person we were staying with decided after a couple of days she wanted us out and the pressure really started to build.
I sat in a bar one of our first nights there and overheard a guy talking about his car being stolen. I asked him where it was parked and he happily told me where and to avoid parking there. I of course did the opposite and sure enough, the next day my car was gone. Just like that, no more $350 car payment and no more alternate side of the street parking.
Things turned around quickly from there. The legendary piano bar star and Broadway performer, Terri White, helped me find a place to live. I met my best friend, Jen Kunsch, who got me a series of really cool jobs and before I knew it, I had made it in New York.
A few years of heavy drinking and poor decision making started to take its toll on me. September 11th put the final nail in the coffin of my time in the Big Apple. I decided to come home to Central Florida.
Nearly 24 years later I find myself in a car with my husband, driving to Boca to visit his aunt and uncle. We were discussing how after seven years of driving back and forth from Orlando to St. Pete, I hit a wall and needed a change. I-4 had taken too much of my life.
We discussed selling the house in St. Pete and moving in with my best friend Jen, who has been my roommate ever since we met all those years ago in NY.
Dylan loved St. Pete and didn’t want to leave but agreed because he knew I needed to. Ultimately though, he asked that it be part of a bigger plan, that we eventually move to New York. Dylan has always wanted to live there since that’s where his mom grew up and his aunt and uncle, who we adore, currently live.
I saw that hopeful energy in him I had when I was 23. As excited as I was for him, the fact that I am now 51 and own a business seemed a bit of a roadblock.
However, I made a promise to Dylan’s mom when I called her to ask for her son’s hand in marriage. I told her I would spend the rest of my life making him happy and making sure he knew he was loved.
I knew on that car ride we would have to find a way to make it work, for him and for the dream his mom had of who he could become. We decided to take the plunge, in a way.
We rented an apartment in Manhattan and Dylan will be moving there full-time in about a month. As for me, I will remain an Orlando resident. Dylan and I have spent most of our time together managing a long-distance relationship. We look at it like this: what was a two-and-a-half-hour drive to see each other is now just a two-and-a-half-hour plane ride. Easy as pie.
So, if you see me checking into more shows in New York than I do now, just know it’s a short trip to see Dylan. I will still be in Central Florida, running the company I love and serving the community I love.
I will still have the same doctors I have here and I will still vote for Anna Eskamani in the next Orlando mayoral race. I’m not going anywhere, just sometimes visiting my husband while he makes his lifelong dreams come true.
Stay visible, stay strong and support each other.
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