One Year Of The Garden Of Noise

A year ago, I moved to New York with no job and into what I can only describe as the world’s most inconveniently spaced apartment. I had no real idea what I was doing.

For a while, I woke up every morning with this pit in my stomach. Dread is probably the best word for it. The dread of the unknown during a period of life where literally everything is unknown. Post-grad is weird like that. For basically your entire life, there has always been a next step. You finish one grade and go to the next. You graduate high school and go to college. Even in college, there is always another semester, another class, another deadline telling you where you are supposed to be. And then suddenly you graduate and everyone asks, “So, what are you doing?”

I didn’t have a good answer. I moved to New York anyway.

Senior year, two weeks before graduating, I called my dad and essentially said, “Hi, I know I just spent four years studying political science and environmental biology, but I don’t think I’m supposed to go to law school.” You can imagine what my parents thought: You’re fucking crazy. And honestly, maybe I was. Maybe I still am. But there was this feeling I couldn’t shake that if I didn’t at least try to build the life I actually wanted, I would always wonder what would have happened if I had.

So I got to New York and made finding my place here my job. Every day had a plan. Some days I had one networking call. Some days I had six. I researched people, companies, artists, jobs, anything that could get me a little closer to figuring out where I belonged. I sent emails. I followed up. I asked people to talk to me. I asked those people who else I should talk to, and then I emailed those people too.

There were so many moments when it felt like absolutely nothing was happening. That was probably the hardest part. Watching friends start their jobs, get settled into their routines, have coworkers and paychecks and something concrete to say when people asked what they were doing. Meanwhile, I was sitting in my inconveniently shaped apartment making another networking call and hoping that eventually one of these conversations would turn into something.

I kept asking myself one question:

When I look back at myself a year from now, am I going to be proud of how I handled this period of my life? 

I refused to let the answer be no.

Eventually, one of those calls led me to Jake Posner, who gave me something I desperately needed at the time: confirmation that this passion I had wasn’t just something in my head. It could actually become my work. He hired me as an intern, and at the same time I worked for a tequila company because passion unfortunately does not pay New York rent. Very glamorous. But I was here. I was working. I was learning. I was getting closer. And I kept calling people.

I learned very quickly that rejection doesn’t always mean stop. Sometimes it means not right now. Sometimes it means you haven’t talked to the right person yet. Sometimes it means you need to follow up again. And sometimes it genuinely means no, and you have to be confident enough in yourself to move on to the next thing. There is a difference between being annoying and being politely persistent, and I think I became pretty fucking good at finding it.

More than anything, I realized that being young and inexperienced didn’t automatically make me the least valuable person in the room. I was young, yes, but I was driven. I was curious. I would learn anything someone was willing to teach me. And if there was room for me to make a difference, I wasn’t going to take no as the final answer without at least trying.

Then, one day, it clicked. All of those calls that felt like they were going nowhere suddenly weren’t going nowhere anymore. Conversations became introductions. Introductions became opportunities. Opportunities became something real. And then I got the call that I got the job at Paladin Artists.

I remember sitting on the floor of my room and crying. Not cute crying either. Because it wasn’t just about getting a job. It was every morning I woke up scared and did it anyway. Every unanswered email. Every awkward networking call. Every time I watched someone else succeed and wondered if I had completely fucked up. Every time I questioned whether moving to one of the most expensive cities in the world without a job was ambitious or just objectively stupid. For the first time, I had proof that maybe I hadn’t been crazy for believing in myself.

From November until now, I have learned and grown more than I could possibly fit into one blog post. I walked into an industry I desperately wanted to be a part of and realized how much I didn’t know. Then I started learning. And learning. And learning some more.

But this year wasn’t only about work. Actually, one of the strangest gifts of not immediately having a secure 9-to-5 was time. Time to actually absorb New York instead of just living inside of it. Music became my grounding point through all of it. When everything else felt uncertain, music wasn’t. It gave me somewhere to go, something to connect to, and eventually an entire industry I could see myself building a life in.

I explored. I wandered. I somehow successfully made it to all five boroughs. I tried things I never would have tried before. I moved apartments. I went on dates. I went out. I stayed in. I laughed with my friends more than I think I ever have in my life. There were nights where I looked around and thought, Holy shit. I live here. There were also mornings where I probably would’ve traded the entire city for a bedroom with a normal floor plan.

Both can be true. That’s probably one of the biggest things New York has taught me. You can be incredibly grateful for your life and still have days where you hate it. You can be genuinely happy for your friends while quietly wondering when it will be your turn. You can know exactly what you want and have absolutely no idea how you’re going to get there. You can be scared and still move forward.

I used to think confidence came from knowing everything was going to work out. I don’t anymore. I think confidence is deciding that even if you have absolutely no idea how something is going to work out, you trust yourself enough to figure out what comes next.

A year ago, I couldn’t have told you where I would be today, but I knew where I wanted to be. And maybe that was enough. Because if this year taught me anything, it’s that if you really want something and yes, within the realm of things that are actually possible you have to stop waiting for someone to hand you permission to go after it. There will always be reasons not to. You’re too young. You don’t have enough experience. You studied the wrong thing. You don’t know the right people. Someone else is further ahead. You should take the safer route. You should wait. At some point, you have to decide whether those things are actually stopping you or whether you’re letting them stop you.

One year later, I think about that version of myself sitting in that horribly laid-out apartment, waking up with dread and opening her laptop anyway. And I can finally answer the question I kept asking her:

Am I proud of myself?

So fucking proud.

Not because everything worked out perfectly. It didn’t. I’m proud because I did not let uncertainty make my decisions for me. I’m proud because I moved. I’m proud because I called. I’m proud because I followed up. I’m proud because I worked jobs I needed to work while trying to get the job I actually wanted. I’m proud because I let myself change my mind about what my life was supposed to look like.

And I’m proud because somewhere between the networking calls, the rejection, the music, the subway rides, the new apartment, the dates, the five boroughs, the nights with my friends and that phone call that made me sit on my bedroom floor and cry, New York stopped feeling like the city I moved to.

It started feeling like my life.

So if you’re graduating, or starting over, or watching everyone around you seemingly figure their shit out while you’re still trying to figure out yours, I can’t tell you that everything magically works out. But I can tell you this … a year is a really fucking long time. Your life can look completely different.

Just make sure that when you meet the version of yourself standing there a year from now, you gave them something to be proud of.