Dear New York, Thank You for the Sign

22 Apr Dear New York, Thank You for the Sign

I love this city, I hate it sometimes, too. In an effort to keep track of my feelings about the Big Apple during my time here I try my best to chronicle them in a letter to this crazy place. Welcome to Dear New York–a series posted monthly on the anniversary of the date I moved here. 

All I needed is a sign, God.

Just a sign.

I plead with God daily about many things. But mostly, just for a sign. That this is the right direction. That this is where He would have me go.

A month ago, I was ready to pack it up and go home. Little by little, encouraging signs roped me back in.

Quite frankly, I think they may have been there all along. Now, they just seem too obvious for me to ignore.

I was offered a full-time position at a fashion company in the marketing department as a marketing and communication coordinator. Just one month after I questioned my decision to live here, I signed my paperwork. I skipped out of the office to a fashion panel at F.I.T. And though, I didn’t get a magazine job I had applied to and would have loved, I did such a good job on my edit test that the editor encouraged me to pitch her. I’m going to let go of a job I came to resent.

Everything turned around in just one month. Isn’t that crazy?

The office is located in the garment district, with designers, seamstresses, mannequins, and merchandising rooms.

I’ve assisted of the set of their fall look book (Summer 2015, too!) and let me tell you that fashion workout (moving garment racks, steaming clothes, dressing models) is no joke.

I think it was then that I started to see my role in the company a little differently. When I first took the job, I thought it would be cool to see the e-commerce side of the industry and what fashion production was all about. Seeing a clothing collection come to life, market and then sell it is exhilarating.

I had taken all those ‘What’s your purpose quizzes?’ and had my life coach’s voice in my head, telling me to pay attention to all the signs.

“I just want to be able to tell a story with fashion,” I remember telling her.

Here’s the thing.

If we’re to believe that everything that happens to us is leading to one specific turn of events–or a series of events, then I should have known this was coming.

“You dress like a designer,” said the man I was sitting across from on a date. He was a designer for a major women’s fashion label and we met during my first official New York Fashion Week. We were having Thai and he was complimenting my layering skills when really, I didn’t have a heavy enough coat and was still living out of a suitcase. I had to get creative to make do.

All of the repair men who come to service something in my apartment at one point or another have asked if I worked in fashion, or if I was a model.

No, no, I write. I’m a writer, I would always answer, amused but flattered.

While I worked in fashion at my previous role as a writer, this is different. I’m actually in fashion. It’s all around me. It’s my boyfriend’s design projects at the butt crack of dawn and my visually-stimulating apartment. It’s the video ideas that I have for my blog and on my computer screen at work. It’s literally everywhere.

I think I may have been blocking my blessings a bit. I was so set on being a writer in the traditional sense.

I came to New York to write.

I want to write.

But who’s to say that I can’t. Or won’t. I can literally carve out my dream writing job here. On my terms.

Wearing: Skaist-Taylor for Target + Neiman Marcus Holiday Collection Vest// J.Crew Long Sleeve T-Shirt// H&M Pleated Faux Leather Skirt// Rebecca Minkoff Hollis Oxfords// House of Harlow Leather Necklace//Rebecca Minkoff Bag

Shop The Look:

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There isn’t just one way to be a writer anymore. And you have to live to have something worth writing, I’m constantly telling myself.

I guess now I’m really working for clothes and coming home to write about them.

On Friday, I happily sat on the floor cutting swatches of fabric for the Spring 2016 collection after unpacking all of the clothing from the photo shoot. And it just felt right. I’m not sure what this means for life or my career but I’m intrigued by the turn of events. And happy I get to chronicle them all here.

I guess I’ve got my sign. Loud and clear.

Plus, a girl’s got benefits now!

Thank you, New York for the sign—and push into this new direction.

p.s. The biggest sign of all to me is that when I get off the train to head to work, I can see the Empire State building. The same one that was in the picture that started it all. Again, all of this, it just feels right.

p.p.s. No, Mom. I do not need money to get my hair done. It rained earlier in the day and I lost all of my curls. But I promise, the bun didn’t look raggedy.