And so we say goodbye to New York…

After more than a few trips up and down the stairs of our sixth floor walk-up apartment building and with the help of my incredibly generous dad, Eaman and I moved out of our Manhattan apartment yesterday and into Nomad Land. It’s a little strange to stop and acknowledge the fact that we’re both unemployed and technically homeless, but celebrating our last few days in the Big Apple was a helpful distraction. We ate good food, laughed with close friends and spent a weekend with a little brat named Irene.

But our big adventure together doesn’t begin just yet. Over the next few weeks, Eaman will be in Italy solo and then joining a friend in Florida for an OU football game, while I’ll be in my hometown of Cherry Hill, N.J., hanging out with family and getting my last-minute items (hello, sleeping bag liner!).

{(southern accent) “Which way to Times Square?” Just kidding. He was en route to JFK.}

Since Eaman quit his job at the end of June and spent July in Iran and August back home in Oklahoma, I had the summer to my self and, with it, a lot of time to sort out my feelings about leaving the city I had always dreamed of living in. As far back as I can remember, I had fantasized about living in a tiny apartment and going to all the super-cool restaurants and bars. I’d be chic even while broke. A starving artist, if you will.

I moved to Manhattan a week after graduating from college in mid-June 2007—and it wasn’t easy. The small Hell’s Kitchen apartment didn’t bother me—even though my cousin and I shared a small room and we slept on mattresses on the floor and the kitchen was in the living room. No, the actual problem was best summed up by what my friend, Deep, called The Sex and the City effect. He saw it happen to a lot of girls; they’d come to the city thinking life would be filled with brunches, shopping and general fabulousity. (OK, he didn’t say fabulousity.)

I’m not dumb. I hadn’t moved to the city to become the next Carrie Bradshaw, but I quickly realized he was kind of right. Living in the city, especially on an intern’s salary, was hard. And with a staunch commitment to not using my parents’ credit card, I was always stressed about money. Oh, and I was lonely and missed Eaman. (June 2007 was the start of our one year of long distance.)

Once my summer sublet ended, I was homeless, and coincidentally, jobless. I literally carried a pillow on the subway to the apartments of various friends, who so graciously let me stay with them. This was not how I envisioned life in the big city.

The week of unknown sucked, but realistically, it only lasted a week. Once I secured a job and an apartment, my New York life finally kicked into high gear.

Over the course of four years, I had so many highs and lows. Here, some fond memories, in no particular order: the East Village apartment, running the 2009 New York Marathon, Shake Shack, free third-row Swan Lake tickets at Lincoln Center, the Catskills trip, Sunday brunch at Wave Hill, bike rides along the Hudson, Clinton Street banana pancakes, seeing Ryan Gosling in the flesh, the Forbidden Broadway Sundae at Serendipity, going to the Sex and the City 2 premiere at Radio City, that crazy night at Butter, L’Asso pizza, watching The Dark Knight at 2am followed by breakfast at Veselka, potlucks, Nolita, my first published Entertainment Weekly article and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

{Wave Hill, April 2010}

(That’s just scratching the surface.)

Some say, “If you can live in New York City, you can live anywhere.” My, how right they are. I’ve had my butt kicked enough times to know that. I couldn’t be more satisfied about my experience and wouldn’t change a single thing, but when it feels right to leave or let something go, it just does. Four years in New York might seem like nothing to some, but to me, it felt like a lifetime. I was tired of zero counter top space in the kitchen, walking what seemed like miles to the laundromat and accepting that subway smell as “normal.” And to be honest, I became an angrier person than I actually am. It’s like the “Wear Sunscreen” column instructs: “Live in New York once, but leave before it makes you hard.” Point taken.

But for every rude taxi driver, interminably long line and cockroach I’ve encountered, there were dinners so memorable I can still taste them, epic nights out that rivaled my college days, and people I met and those I reconnected with who shaped my experience into what it was.

Our relationship with the city was one of love and hate. Thankfully, both Eaman and I leave with love. (I wouldn’t have said the same a year ago!) There is certainly no place like New York. The energy, the people, the creativity, THE FOOD. Living there was an experience that made us stronger people and, we’d like to think, prepared us well for this year ahead.

You might’ve made me cry, you might’ve given me sidewalk rage and you may have increased my swear-word usage exponentially, but New York, I love you.