40-Something in the City

It's my 25th year in New York. To people who keep track of these things, I'm officially official. 

I moved here an unemployed 22-year-old with no friends, home-bleached hair and a single sweater. I lived here through 9/11 and the early aughts when the Village Voice was on every street corner and people still made calls in phone booths. I loved The Coffee Shop in Union Square and a long-gone Aghani restaurant on 3rd Ave where you could take your shoes off and lean against orange silk pillows. I bought my first leather jacket at Antique Boutique on West Broadway and thought, "Finally! I have an edge!". It was long, stiff and dark purple and I didn't realize it had been spray-painted that way until I wore it on a cloudy November day and off my hemline dripped a faint purple rain. 

Anyway, I've been here a long time. I lived here as a very young woman and I will probably live here as a very old woman too, hopefully in a tasteful three-bedroom co-op overlooking Central Park with striking architectural details and a handsome young doorman.

But for now, I'm a middle-aged woman in New York and sometimes find it to be a bit isolating. The streets of New York City will always flood with ambitious twenty-somethings coming to work in banks or ad agencies or theater houses. It took almost no effort to meet contemporaries in my 20s. Back then, I made friends at the laundromat, my local bars and Godforsaken Craigslist. It's a miracle I never got murdered.

But not everyone who moves here has an intention to stay. I don't know the stats but I'd guess that most don't. New York is a "try it on" kind of place, a transient city. I'm not in touch with any of the friends I met here in my early 20s. They grew up all over the place, worked in NY for five or six years then scattered back all over the country well over 18 years ago. I actually struggle to remember most of their names. I'm not talking about you, K.B.C. North Carolina was lucky to get you. 

#RIP Loehmann's

But people my age seem harder to spot these days. I don't notice a lot of other 40-somethings in Astoria besides the friends I cling to like vinyl. In my neighborhood I notice it's mostly older people who have lived here for 50 years or young adults who'll likely be gone in three. Obviously, the majority of my peers are in the thick of parenthood, and many made the move to New Jersey or Long Island eight to ten years ago. The call for more closet space and dishwashers and backyards was strong and they answered it. I can't say I blame them-- to be almost 50 and still not have an actual kitchen cupboard is a humbling experience.

I remember being 22 walking around in my silly purple jacket feeling like everyone looked cooler than me. Now when I walk around I can't help noticing how many people look so much younger than me. Yesterday on my walk to work a 20-something on a scooter side-swiped me so hard he knocked the sunglasses off my face. I picked them up off the sidewalk and shook them like a cane.

I feel like an auntie out on these streets. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation. I actually forget that I'm not in my 20s or 30s until I meet someone in that age range and am served a harsh reminder. Every time I get a new 27-year-old client it takes me 10 minutes to realize there are 20 years between us. They describe their experiences and I can remember the feelings so vividly it takes me right back to that time. Then I make a pop culture reference that embarrasses us both and remember I'm not their contemporary. 

Anyway, I'm gonna wrap this up by doing something Gen Z would describe as cringe and quote the very silly Carrie Bradshaw. The title alone should have told you I might be headed there. There's a scene in the first Sex and the City movie (only slightly less cringy than their second) where Carrie is having cocktails with her young assistant Jennifer Hudson at a bar and says, "Enjoy yourself... that's what your 20s are for. Your 30s are to learn the lessons and your 40s are to pay for the drinks."

I think she got the first half right but don't relate with the last part. Cocktails in Manhattan cost 25 bucks and make me lose two nights' sleep. 

I think my 40s will be for something else. Something I haven't quite worked out yet.