Member-only story
That Time I Blew a Career in Publishing and Lost a Friend
Opportunity knocked, but my head was in the clouds
I was living in New York, having made it back after graduating from college a year earlier. (I previously lived in New York City for a year after my sophomore year, dropping out of college, not sure if I would go back)
In my year off, I made a friend in an acting class. A few years older than me, she was mainly in the class to improve her public speaking skills. She had a “real job” working for a large bookseller.
I and most of my friends my age worked retail or restaurant jobs. Being her friend made me feel more grown-up. She was young - still in her twenties, but she had her sh*t together. She took me out to dinner in a fancy restaurant one night and insisted on footing the bill. She could afford it, she said, it was her pleasure.
One day I could take her out she said, and despite my flighty/more artistic inclinations, some part of me wanted to believe that someday I could be a successful New York career girl too.
Something about living in New York, even as a starving artist, made me want to believe I could “make it” too, even though realistically I knew that I wasn’t interested in an office job career as my own dream.
