Brown Chicken Brown Cow

Last week I celebrated my 10th year of living in NYC.

How can I even try to summarize the most changing decade of my life? Trust me, you can’t. So, here are some highlights (TL;DR 10 years holy shit you guys are awesome):

1) How do I even begin to tell my love story with Luke Chatelain? How can I possibly tackle the single most important, moving, shaping, compelling, heartbreaking, heartmaking, magical, physical, irrational, sane, desperate, gentle, patient, soft, perfect part of ten years of my life? His name is etched alongside all of my memories. There is no piece of the past decade that he didn’t touch. I pride myself on not having become ‘one of those women’ who are only defined by their man. On the contrary. Luke brings out the ‘me’ I sometimes disguise around others. He brings a lushness to my life. Luke is, in every way, the love of my lifetime. I am awed by him, grateful for him and better because of him. 

2) I feel like New York made me a teenager all over again. All the growing I thought I did in the years leading up to the move was merely a superficial wash of the education living in this city would teach me. Iowa, Chicago - thanks - but nothing can prepare you for the full-frontal assault that is living in this city. 

3) There are people. So many people. Too many to tag, too many to count, but all of who pushed me to be better and stronger. They say it “takes a village” - but seriously - New York takes a Tribe. Cheers to all of you, and to those who have held me fast: Hannah, Ann, Kelly, Erin, Al, Heidi, Caroline, Anne, Mary Beth, Liz, Christine, Claudia, Andy, Annie, Gina, Kristen, Mike, Nolan, Jay, Colin, Carrie, VanHoven, Matt, Petescia, Tony, Gretchen, Anna Kate, TJ, Julia, Grillo, Kaitlin, Cathy, Dany, Brandon, and my entire family (including two new family members, Daralisa and Shaelyn!) 

4) In ten years I have learned how to: read tarot cards, speak bad Spanish, lift weights, drink wine, keep plants alive, ride a bike in traffic, write with brevity (despite this post), eat soup dumplings, #Cagematch, fold a pizza, reconnect with my family (through the help of Karrie Gottschild), find a German beer festival hidden in the mountains, play it cool around celebrities, color inside the lines, get around on crutches, improve my credit, hail a taxi, write a press release, sweat through SoulCycle, do puzzles in 24 hours, deal with a flooded Airbnb, see the Mermaid Parade, crowdsurf, share a bed, stand to the right and walk to the left, order coffee efficiently, dress for a drag show, toast at a wedding, Dougie, remove my appendix, pack a carry-on for five days, hunker down for a hurricane, say I’m sorry, cook for 20 at MerryThanksGivingmas, jaywalk, find the difference between rude and busy, how to brunch, how to wear black for a week, how to stop biting my nails and where to walk through a field of 2000 sunflowers.

5) It feels wrong to look back on ten years and not look ahead to the next ten. But who is to say what it will bring. As many have said before, “if you told me ten years ago this is where I would be, I wouldn’t have believed you”. So I’ll leave it at that.

Mahatma Ghandi, as you know, walked barefoot most of his life, which produced an impressive set of callouses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail. And with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him:

A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.