One Month

It's Nov. 30, 2008. One month from today, at 12:15 CST/1:15 EST, I will be boarding a plane heading for La Guardia and I will not be returning. At least not for a while. Here's my flight path:

Yep, I'm flying through two airports in the same state. I can has cheep tktz?

I'm sure most of you came to this blog either from Facebook or from my other beloved (pronounced bee-luv-id), Hautey Toddy. Fear not, HT readers, I will keep up that blog as well. But I should let you all know, in the name of keeping it real, that this blog is not HT. It's just me. It's Meghan. I will be expressing myself in an unfiltered way. This might, and probably will, include the use of foul language. It will also, you'll be glad to know, include the use of lolspeek. I think using these two approaches will keep most of you appeased. Or uhpeezed.

When I started writing HT, the first thing I did was explain why I wanted to write it. You might be wondering why anyone should give a shit about my journey from B'ham to NYC; my response is that I don't expect that anyone really does. But maybe there is someone out there who grew up in the South and wants to know what it's like not only to move up North, but to move to one of the most populated cities in the world. How do you even go about such a move? What about all the stuff you have to take with you? How do you find a place to live? A job? What if you say "y'all" and people look at you funny? Etc etc.

So far I only have half-answers to such questions, because I'm still in Birmingham. My plan thus far consists of packing two suitcases with as much of my shit as possible, getting on a plane, and staying with my friend Z until I find a place of my own. Sure, I've already started preparations. I've been doing informational interviews with as many people as possible within the company I work for, as well as with mag/web employees in New York. I set up an HR interview with a major magazine company for early January. I've been looking for people needing roommates/available apartments on Ed2010 and Craigslist. I feel like I'm pretty much doing everything I can to make myself prepared for the most significant transition in my life. Going away to college was nothin, y'all. I'm leaving and I don't know when I'm coming back. WTF.

As a result, my brain has been kind of a clusterfuck since I bought my ticket. Ever since I moved home to start my internship, I feel like I've lost some of my identity. My best friend C, who I've been best friends with since freshman year of college, lives in Chicago and I haven't seen her since June. Z lives in NYC, obvs, and I haven't seen him since June either, except for a brief skankfest in Jackson in September. I've been in a long-distance relationship with A in D.C. since July, and I think I have felt the strain of a lost identity most with him. How can you really be with someone when you feel like you don't know who you are anymore? You can't, that's how.

Add in the strain of entering into an industry that is, by some accounts at least, crumbling amongst the ruins of the current economic crisis, and you have a recipe for depression and confusion. And that's what I've been feeling for the past month or so. The only thing I know I want is to be reunited with my best friends and to be in NYC. So this blog will be a documentation of my journey - literally and emotionally - from the leisurely life I've known in the South to the fast-paced life I want in New York. In case you're reading this as a Southerner dreaming of a different life in a big Northern city, but feeling apprehensive: I'm there right now. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway. Maybe that's just how life is. Maybe if you're not scared, you're living too comfortably.

Who the fuck knows. I'm 22 years old, and I don't claim to know anything. I'm just doing what I feel in my heart is the right thing to do. I fell hard in love with New York over four years ago, so why would I choose to live anywhere else?

Thanks for checking out BtoA. I want you all with me on my journey.
I am, now and always,
Majorly yours.