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New York City houses the dreams of so many people. It IS the city where anything can happen – where people go to find a reality they’ve imagined, to find a success they’ve been craving, or to prove something to themselves or to others. I can only imagine how long the book would be to describe all the dreams placed upon NYC.
I’ve never lived anywhere besides Mayville or Milwaukee. I’ve visited many other places – western Europe a few times, Guatemala, Jamaica, New York a few times, many other states – but I’ve never >lived< anywhere else. I don’t know what made me happy with Milwaukee, but here I’ve stayed. This has not been the case for many others though.
In September, I traveled to New York City – just for three days – but while there, I got to chat with four people from Wisconsin, who each have heard the siren call of the Big Apple, and followed it east.
Mattie is 28-years old, and works for an ad+content agency, doing UX design. She’s been in NYC since the summer of 2015. Unlike many people moving to New York, Mattie has a bit of an advantage – she’s lived there previously. We met at coffee-shop in Harlem, a few blocks north of Central Park, to talk about her becoming a New Yorker.
After Mattie graduated from college, she spent 2 years in NYC. She started in a teaching fellowship but realized that wasn’t a direction she wanted to pursue. She ended up in a job designing costume jewelry. During this time, Mattie also realized she wasn’t as “grounded” as she felt she ought to be. She made the decision to return home to MKE and “re-set” herself, while maintaining intentions to return to New York. In the six years since graduating college, she’s done a lot, such as: volunteering on social justice issues, managing a restaurant, and teaching special education.
While back in MKE, at her brother’s suggestion, she did a “user experience design bootcamp”, which led to being recruited for the job in NYC, and working remotely from MKE. She was enjoying the design experience, stating that it was “challenging and it’s a good mix of nerdiness and creativity.” Mattie was developing plans to return to NYC, but then a friend’s going through some personal challenges, and needing the support of a friend, brought Mattie back to town sooner than she anticipated. She now lives in a 3-BR with her friend and one other roommate. The apartment is cozy, though and that has brought into play another of Mattie’s skills – “upcycling”.
In Milwaukee, she was living in a small 1BR and didn’t have much money to spend on furniture and home goods. She put her apartment together with thrifted and found items, impressing her friends with how stylish her space was. Mattie suggested that it’s “too easy to associate “style” and “class” with expensive tastes, but it doesn’t need to be like that.” She’d like to see more people try upcycling in their home design and even in their clothing.
As NYC is the “city that never sleeps”, it’d be entirely too easy to live with a jam-packed schedule, but Mattie is working hard to keep things intentional. She plays co-ed soccer one night a week, and makes sure to reserve time just for herself, too. The pace of the metropolis takes a lot of getting used to and Mattie’s learned to develop a thicker skin – “It’s competitive out here. I’m sensitive, but a pistol” and “”Everything just takes more time out here.” So far though, things are going the way she hoped, as she put it “Milwaukee is great, but for now, for me, it was a bit restrictive. Now is the time…(for NYC).”
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Watch the blog for two more entries of “WI in NYC” in the coming weeks…