A lot can happen in a year ...

It’s the end of a year, a year full of life changing chances, choices and experiences. Just one year ago, I started my internship with Two West in Kansas City. During my first 3 years of post college life I’ve looked back on my choices and thought, “if only I would have stuck that unpaid internship out!” or, “If I wouldn’t have changed my direction from agency to client side.” You can sit there and ask “what if” for days but it’s never going to accomplish anything and that is exactly what I learned in April of 2009 sitting in my gross office at Augusta Winery. That was not what I wanted, what I wanted was the hip cubicle in a trendy office with creatives that had blenders and microwaves set up at their desk and on the last week of June that is what I got. There weren’t any blenders or microwaves at Two West but I did have a window and exposed brick making my cubicle ultra trendy! Did I expect it would bring me to New York? Not a chance but I knew Two West had something huge in store for me – so I took a chance, packed my car and went west.

Today, one year later, I’m moving out of my first New York apartment and I can’t help but feel nostalgic about it all. At 16, I had a better idea of what I wanted to do than I did in the past three years, I didn’t know the details but I did know I was going to live in New York and as my mom reminds me, I was going to have a high rise apartment where I could sit in my bay window and watch the city lights just like “Miracle on 34^th st.”. I don’t have a high rise apartment and the only lights I can see from my window are the ones coming from the Stuyvesant town apartment across the street from me but next summer, I hope to have a roof top pool (I’m just gonna dream big). When you’re 16 and live at home attending a sheltered all girl private high school in a quiet little town, anything seems possible. Then, when you tell your parents you want to go to school in Chicago you don’t they will but they believe you, so they drive you there and literally drop you off in this huge city with a stranger as a roommate (who turns out to be a crazy who does drugs), you tend to turn a little gun shy – suddenly New York seemed a little lofty. I had to find a new path luckily someone disguised that path I was taking by leading me to Kansas City first so not to scare me. I guess I had to see what it was like to live in a pretend city so I could earn back my rights to live in a real city. Without taking that chance and moving to Kansas City, I never would have remembered where my heart really belonged.

To put this over the edge of “nostalgic” to “corny” I’ll add this next section -- I visited Tiffany’s on Sunday which is where this love affair began almost 10 years ago and just stood in the sterling silver aisle furthest to the right on the 3^rd floor and among the buzzing of the tourists moving from case to case bumping each other with their shopping bags gazing down at the pieces of timeless treasures in the impeccably polished cases, I swear I saw 16 year old me fawning over my newly purchased glistening bauble knowing this purchase was just the beginning of something amazing. Looking down at my now gently worn, severely loved and iconic .925 sterling silver “Return to Tiffany’s” bracelet purchased on my first date with New York, I noticed, like me, it’s not shiny and new anymore but it’s developed a nice luster and I’m not afraid of letting it get a little scratch because you have to fight for what you want and take those risks.