I am 28 years old and an aspiring singer-songwriter. I recently married my best friend Stephen after 9+ years of dating (6 of which were long distance), and we decided to start out on our incredible adventure together in The Big Apple.
This decision came not long after Stephen: 1) proposed to me, 2) graduated with his MBA from Georgetown University in the summer of 2009, and 3) after many intense interviews, landed a prestigious job offer with the FDIC.
While I was enjoying my career as a recruiter for a global networking firm down in Austin (and had been for 4 years), I quickly realized that my work/success in that role could never be as important to me as the work Stephen would be receiving here in New York to help make his dreams come true. I have come to realize recently it was never my dream to be a recruiter for an expert network; I just happened to be good at it. On the flip side, Stephen was being given the opportunity to examine an endless number of banks in the most powerful city in the world; an opportunity that is open to few.
Currently, I have no doubt that this is exactly where he needs to be to accomplish his goals........but ask me in my independent-fury a few months ago, and I'll have told you a different story. More on that later.
Like many of those in the fast lane next to me, I came from another land. Texas is my home and I adore everything that The Lonestar State has to offer; the people, state pride, music, schools, football, arts, sunsets, activities, lakes, The Gulf, running trails, the openness surrounding any one of the the 1-8 hour stretches of highway separating one city from the next.........Texas is a special place with elements and towns that could satisfy even the most stubborn of nay-sayers and outsiders.
So if I adore my home and life in Texas (Austin in particular) so much, how did I manage to decide New York was an acceptable place to call home?
Besides the fact that my (then) fiancee begged me to join him, let me tell you a little story that might help you understand what pushed me over the edge; it was something I recalled that was even more powerful than my loving mother's foot behind me.....
SIDE NOTE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE (START)
I would just like to take a blog-breather to concur with Jane Austin; ALL MOTHERS SECRETLY WANT THEIR DAUGHTERS TO GET MARRIED! No matter how hard your mother pushes you to be a self-sustaining, independent, educated and fearless woman, there is some sort of secret club that she will reveal that she has been a part of FOR YEARS the moment you tell her you are engaged. Take and compare these two phone conversations:
Phone Conversation 1:
Me: "MOM! I just finished recording a 15 song album outside of working hours that I wrote, funded, co-produced, and sang myself! It's taken me 3 years, but we are in the final stages of having the album edited and go to press!"
Mom: "Oh, that is so nice and I am sooo proud of you, Sarah! ........OH! SARAH! I am looking at that tree in our backyard with your father's binoculars and I can see baby birds in that eagle's nest I was telling you about! OOOOOOH! They are SOOOO cuuuute! I tell you, I'm just having so much fun watching these little creatures this summer! Ooop! That's my other line, Sweet Pea! Love you!"
Phone Conversation 2:
Me: "Hi Mom! How's it going on your vacation in Michigan?"
Mom: "Well, I'm just hanging out with some of my girl friends from down the street! We're having tea! What's up?"
Me: "Well, I thought I would just call you to let you know......I'm engaged! Stephen asked me to marry him!!!"
Mom: "Eeeehhhmphhhh.....*sniffle, sniffle, sniffle* (speaking to her friends in the teariest, proudest and loudest of voices) SARAH IS ENGAGED! MY BABY IS ENGAGED! Well, hallelujah! HA! HA! FINALLY! You need to call your father! Call him on his cell phone! He will be SOOOO excited to hear from you! .....Wait, you said 'yes', right?
Me: "Ha. Of course I did, mom."
Mom: "Well, I just can't believe this! Oh my goodness!"
I think I could hear the phone crunch-up against the many bosoms of friends hugging my mom as she was saying all of this to me on January 24th, 2009. The conversation then ended in something like, "Well! You have a great time celebrating in DC tonight, and say hello to "YOUR LOVE-ER" for me!!! KISS! KISS, PUNKIN!" - all this, coming from the mom who would only refer to Stephen as my "Special Friend" until he asked her and my father for my hand in marriage.
So please be warned. It's nothing personal, but it's everything personal: no matter how proud moms are of your many, many, many career successes, I guarantee they will be a million times that in regards to your success in love. It's in their blood and I have a gut feeling I'll find this out for myself one day.
SIDE NOTE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE (END).
So back to my story of how I decided to take a leap to New York from my incredible life in Austin:
Once upon the summer of 2000, an 18 year old version of myself was privileged enough to take a two week trip to Manhattan with her high school Production Company. She had been a few different places around the country prior to New York, but nothing compared to what her eyes witnessed in the summer of 2000. For months she begged and pleaded with her mom and dad to let her take the trip. She was so adamant about going that she offered to pay for half of the trip. Of course her father, seeing that she was a "chip off the old sales block", said yes at that point.
Over 14 days that summer, 18-Year-Old-Sarah saw more broadway plays and musicals than she had in her life: The Green Bird, The Ride Down Mount Morgan with Patrick Stuart (or Jean-Luc Picard to those of you who also dawn a dork-hat from time to time), AIDA, Taller Than A Dwarf with Matthew Broderick........who I am certain I frightened back stage when given the opportunity to meet him in his dressing room.......the list goes on.
In addition to seeing all the live shows, our Production Company was permitted to take acting classes at Julliard during our stay. We met and learned from award winning actors and actresses such as Anthony Rapp from Rent and Cherry Jones after her Tony nominated performance of Moon for the Misbegotten; you might remember her better as President Allison Taylor from the TV show, 24.
As if that were not enough stimulation for a group of rowdy teenagers, we were able to obtain tickets to the 54th Annual Tony Awards which was hosted that year by the fabulous and hilarious Rosie O'Donnell and Nathan Lane.
While I feel bliss every moment I walk the streets of New York, I must admit that there is this rush of excitement I miss and am trying to resurrect: I discovered this overwhelming feeling from the FIRST moment I saw the city that summer. I swear that the second our bus from Newark parked in front of our hotel, I stepped off that threshold and seemed to break into a song. Whilst looking up into the blue sky crowded with sky scrappers, and buried in a sea of people, the song my heart wrote went a little like, "I WANT TO LIIIIIIIVE HEEEEEEAR! This is my HOOOOOOOOOOOOOME NOWWWWW!" Or something to that affect.
The city called to me so strongly that I remember my bedtime prayers from then on going something like, "Dear God. Please bless Grandma and Grandpa, Mommy and Daddy, Scott and Meredith, and all my family and friends. Also bless my dogs Cinnabar, Chardonnay, and Croissant and Puffalumps the Cat, and all my friends' and family's pets and animals (boy did I cover my bases back then). Also, please let me do well in college at UT, and please help me get to New York someday."
I must have prayed that prayer for years!......adding my sister's husband, brother's wife, and their children to the list of people God should watch out for, of course...........But as college progressed from Freshman to Senior year from 2000 to 2004, I was beginning to realize how much I loved Austin.
This is coming from the girl who had begged her parents to let her go to any college in NY only to hear her father proclaim "You can go to New York on somebody else's budget!" and her mom say, "You will go to The University of Texas and you will like it!" just a few years before when she was a teen. And she was right; I loved it.
Texas is the place where I found Stephen, the love of my life and husband. It's where my sister, brother, nieces and nephews can be found. It's the place where my favorite summer camp is in the hill country, and even where my friend Meredith let me ride her horses. It's the great state that holds many, many stages that I performed on. You can even find my first recording studio and producer there. It's the place that offers beach front AND lake front views. It's home to my favorite football team (Hook 'Em Horns!) and coach (Mac Brown). It's home to all who are looking for one, and for me, it was a petri dish for my dreams.
I hesitated leaving everything I had built there because I had forgotten that prayer I had prayed. I thought it just wasn't in the cards for me to live in New York, and I invested my dreams in Austin. But by 2009, the recession was in full force and we were starting to get hit hard. My friends lost their jobs, they started moving away, my brother and sister now had families of their own, my mom and dad were starting to think of spending more time at their summer home in Michigan..........I found out that Austin, Texas (and even the entire great state itself), was nothing without the people I loved inside of it.
I finally realized that Stephen was not coming back to Texas. He had asked me to marry him so that we could put our 6 year long-distance relationship behind us and finally be together again. That also led to him asking me to support his dream of becoming one of the top bank examiners in the country (and I'm telling you, he will be), and I'm very honored he wanted me beside him on this ride. But he did this knowing how much I would be leaving behind that I had built on my own.
What I finally admitted (after too many months of sly resentment), was that I had always dreamed of being here; I had merely forgotten. My dream has always been to find any stage to sing on. And if I fail here in New York City, well....at least I tried. I can live with following my dreams. I cannot live with them haunting me.
