EliHorne

My life has changed a lot in the past 6 months. Half a year ago today, I was sitting in my North Philadelphia apartment scouring real estate listings and trying to build my client roster. The end of my academic career was rapidly approaching, and I was pretty damn sure I had everything figured out. I was going to buy a multi-unit apartment in South Philly, rent to my friends, and freelance my way to stardom. Cocky might be an overstatement, but I’m a pretty confident guy. I don’t let my guard down very often, and frankly, vulnerability makes me a bit queasy. Natasha was sticking around Philly, and I had embraced the fact that I was going to pursue graphic design instead of film for my 9-5 (something that took me a surprisingly long time to come to terms with). All things considered, my life seemed very complete. I had a coffee maker, a blender, two cats, and a shit-load of other material possessions. I was also completely complacent in the worst way.

Then everything started to unravel. While a little soul searching would probably reveal that it had been unravelling for quite a while before hand, the real catalyst was Natasha’s decision to move to New York. With some help from her uncle Patrick, she had scored a sweet gig interning with Kaufman films and was moving as soon as school let out. You need to know that I’ve officially lived with Natasha since sophomore year of college, and unofficially since 2nd semester of freshman year when we played pool for a minimum of 4 hours a day. I had grown accustomed to seeing my best friend everyday, being able to watch movies while compunicating every night, and going on spontaneous bike rides through desolate city streets. Being the stubborn person that I am, I told myself that this didn’t matter; Philly was still the right place for me. I had invested “so much time studying the market” and “building networking” that moving to a whole new city (New York of all places!) just wasn’t in the cards for me. Actually, it scared the crap out of me.

It’s time for a little gut wrenching honesty here: as much as I hate to admit it, Natasha tends to be right a lot of the time. Although I consider myself pretty original and on top of the times, she somehow manages to be a 1/2 step ahead of me more often than I like. She introduced me to track bikes, beat me to RELoad bags, converted me to skinny jeans, hell, she even got me to switch to  macs. So despite my heaving and hawing, you’d think I would have picked up on the New York thing sooner, right? Wrong.

Natasha realized two things that I was procrastinating about. (1) While it was very easy to continue doing the freelance stuff we had been doing for the past 3 years, we had hit a bit of a professional wall. Our contracts seemed to be coming from the same group of people, our prices were staying the same, but our expenses were increasing. Along side graduation comes paying your own rent, groceries and biggest of all, HEALTH CARE. This is enough of a big deal that most of my friends can quote you the number of hours you have to work to qualify for health care at Starbucks. The other (2) thing is that Philadelphia simply doesn’t have a large creative job market. The fact that Philly is located in the middle of everything is both its source of revenue, and its utter downfall. New York people priced out of the city are moving to Philly because of its cheap property and lower cost of living, but they are still commuting north for work. A staggering high percentage of Philadelphia residents leave immediately upon graduation from one of its myriad colleges. This is something they acknowledge and are working on, but it doesn’t change the fact that when I realized I needed to join a design firm for structure and support, I only had a handful of companies in the area worth taking seriously.

There was more going on behind the scenes including disillusionment with the prospect of being a home owner/mortage slave, and an ugly break-up with a wonderful girl, but for the sake of brevity let’s say this: I wanted a job and I wanted my best friend. This is that moment of clarity they talk about in movies. The light bulb moment. *DING*

“NEW YORK HERE I COME!”

During the month of may, I sold/gave away/threw away all of my unnecessary physical possessions. My clothes were paired down to what could fit inside 2 military duffel bags, I sold all four (4!) of my bikes, and I moved out of my apartment. My awesome friend Casey was kind enough to let me crash at her place while I weathered the storm that was summer courses due to a credit discrepancy (see: I’m a horrible student and the admissions department was inept), and then I boarded a plane to New Orleans with my two cats. You thought I forgot about them, didn’t you? “He glossed over that detail.” “I bet he just abandoned them in the wilds of North Philly.” Nope, I took them to a vet for all their immunizations, boarded them while I couch surfed, and then dumped them on my loving parents (1 & 2). Hey, I’m not completely irresponsible. But I digress: we were talking about possessions. Getting rid of all the crap I’d accumulated before and during college was the single biggest cathartic moment of my young life. I can’t recommend it more highly. I’m not going to get up on my soap box here, but let me say being completely brutal with yourself and parting ways with that which is not completely essential to your existence is incredibly liberating.

After 3 weeks of laboring in New Orleans with two talented guys (1 / 2) and a wonderful organization (subject of next post, I PROMISE!), I’m finally here. Brooklyn, NY, USA. I’ve been lining up interviews for the next two weeks, and exploring this nation’s greatest city in the downtime. This is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. It’s a completely fresh slate, with a million possible outcomes. After 20 years of preparation and arduously inane drill work (see: school), I’ve finally arrived at the big ball game. I couldn’t have done this without my wonderful parents and friends. Because of them I know that there are people I can call on should I find myself in truly dire straits, but this is the most exposed and vulnerable I’ve been in YEARS.

And let me tell you, it feels great.