I’ve lived in Brooklyn for 7 months now - time flies!
I’m currently sitting on my couch reflecting on my move to New York, and how I’m feeling about everything now that I’m mostly settled.
Here’s a highlight reel of things that made me feel happy and grateful over the past few weeks:
- Watching Alexa see her very first firefly
- Bringing Kodak to my favorite neighborhood restaurant for brunch, sitting outside in perfect sunny weather, and enjoying a fantastic egg sandwich, pita, hummus, and coffee
- Citi Biking to Prospect Park with our Tommy Bahama chairs, setting up camp, and reading Don Quixote in the sun
- Helping some friends carry a free couch a few blocks and into their second-floor apartment
- Going shopping for some slacks for an upcoming wedding, and being able to easily go to so many stores in person to try things on
- Going on several runs through Prospect Park
- Going to a Lectures on Tap event (see my last post)
- Seeing a tiny Pomeranian wearing sunglasses on the subway
- Getting some work done from the stunning New York Public Library flagship location
- Experiencing our first apartment cockroach (this one didn’t make me feel very happy at the time, but now I’m grateful for the memory 😅)
- Going to a Yankees game with friends
- Watching fireworks with the Manhattan skyline in the background from Sunset Park 🦅
- Walking over and having a lovely dinner at our friends’ apartment
- Bringing a blanket to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to sit in the sun and enjoy a groovy jazz concert while chatting with friends
- Biking home from the Botanic Garden through Prospect Park at dusk with perfect summer weather and fireflies everywhere
- Petting my desk neighbor’s dog that he brought to the coworking space
- Getting lunch with a different desk neighbor from my coworking space
- Trivia night with the boys at a pub down the street (plus delicious pizza)
- Exploring a new neighborhood to do some gift shopping
- Watching a friend’s dog twice while he was in the neighborhood working, and getting to hang with said friend after
- Having a perfect, magical beach day with friends at Rockaway (with Super Burrito, which was incredible enough to deserve its own mention)
- Being able to walk, bike, and/or subway everywhere, without ever having to drive a car 😎
If it's not obvious from this list, I'm really glad we decided to make the leap! Of course it's not all perfect (100 degrees with humidity is pretty unpleasant weather, sometimes I wish our street was quieter at night, having some outdoor space for Kodak would be great, and we deeply miss our friends and family out west) but overall I love that we finally decided to act.
I saw this quote recently:
"Life rewards action, not intelligence."
- James Clear
I’m the type of person who could easily spend hours sitting inside staring at the wall thinking, so I’ve really been trying to focus on doing more and thinking less. With that as my mantra, I think NYC is the perfect place to be right now.
To any of my NY connections alluded to above: thank you (sincerely) for helping us feel so welcome and included, and for showing us the ropes at times ❤️ I feel so fortunate and lucky to have such cool, friendly, inspiring people in my life.