MY NYC STORY (2013)

I had The Soul Tape 3 blasting when I drove down Canal and over the Manhattan Bridge for the very first time in my own car. The Alchemist really ate with that “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. That's real. 

I left Houston at 5am on Saturday morning with the last of my belongings crammed into my car. A few months prior I had sold almost everything in my apartment and moved in with my homegirl. It took me 2 days and 24 total hours of driving to pull up in Brooklyn. It rained the entire time and the bald front tire on my C300 had me hydroplaning the whole drive. I was once again solo and had stopped at a hotel in Tennessee to spend the night. I finally arrived in Bed-Stuy at 8PM on Sunday 12/29/13, just in time for a fresh new year. 

I had been plotting NYC since my first visit in 2008. I joined The T-Howard Foundation, which matches diverse interns with companies in the media and entertainment industry. Most of the opportunities were East and West but it was the first year they had a few spots at Comcast in Houston. They flew me to NYC to attend the orientation before my summer internship started. I was there for 3 days and I was so high on the city that I barely slept. By the time I got back home to Houston, it was settled. There was no way I wasn’t moving to Brooklyn and working for a major media company. 

Over the next few years I would travel back for various T-Howard business and then started visiting every November with a few of my homegirls. We had a time. always. A few of our friends from Texas lived there and they would run up a lit itinerary for us. We’d be out until 5 and 6 in the morning every night. The energy of this place was in me and I had to find a way to move here. During those years I was building an attachment to the grit of the city, the adrenaline, the sounds (NOT the smells), and maybe a few guys with up north demeanors and deep East Coast accents. 

After my summer internship in 2008 I went back to TSU to finish up the last year before graduating with my Bachelors degree in Marketing. During the last semester, the VP of Marketing at Comcast called me and offered me a role on her team. Since I was still in school, she worked around my class schedule. It’s always so wild to think back on the most pivotal moments in our lives and that opportunity definitely sparked off my career and path to get to NYC. 

After I got my bachelors, I quickly decided to go back to get my Masters degree. I was set to graduate with my MBA in the spring of 2013 and decided to pull the trigger on my move to NYC. Earlier that year my boss went to NBC Sports and brought me along to help her launch a regional network that would carry the Houston Astros and Rockets games. She originally was from NYC so when I told her I was planning to move she offered to open up her network to me. 

I started looking for jobs and apartments in the fall of 2013 and that shit was damn near impossible because I wasn’t physically there. I was competing with local talent who could seamlessly interview and the housing market was so much more complicated than in the South. I needed to be there to finesse both searches. Time was passing and I wasn’t landing in either lane. I finally said fuck it and decided that I was leaving at the end of December regardless of whatever. 

My brain has been wired for productivity and problem solving since I can remember, it can really get down with the best of them. But I vividly remember what that anxiety felt like in my stomach, and I wish I could go back and hug that version of myself. She was fighting so hard to make that dream happen by any means necessary. She unfortunately didn’t understand yet that it was God’s will and she didn’t need to create struggle in order for it to come to fruition. I now can smile knowing that the energy of this place was pulling me here and arranging all of my steps. 

I eventually landed with a housing company that rented out short term rooms mostly to interns from around the world. I decided I would stay in one of their brownstones in Bed-Stuy with 3 other random roommates that would rotate in and out. It was a wild feeling to go from living in a Houston loft near the Galleria with an assigned parking spot and 3 cabana style pools to sharing an apartment with strangers. But I felt like I could rent the room for a few months while I looked for my own place. Boom, that was settled. 

With no job offers, I linked up with several temp agencies and decided I would do that when I arrived so I could continue to apply for media marketing positions. It was 10 days before I was set to drive myself across the country and I had booked a flight to come see the room I was renting to make sure everything checked out. The day before my flight I got a call from Showtime Networks about a marketing position I had applied for. They asked if I was able to interview and it actually lined up with when I was going to be there visiting. Divinity shit. So I flew out, did the interview and was offered the job on the spot. It was a 4 month temporary position covering for someone going out on maternity leave but I would be bringing in more than double what I was making in Houston. I still shake my head at how all those chips fell. God did. 

I pulled up to the brownstone that Sunday evening and unpacked all my stuff into the small room I was renting. I woke up Monday morning and made my first J train commute into the Showtime offices on 50th Street in Manhattan. 

There was no time to adjust but it was a familiar ‘this is what we’re doing, let’s get to it’ vibe. Washing clothes at a laundry mat again. Getting my car not only snowed in, but completely iced in. Piling up alternate side parking tickets until I finally got the hang of it. Not understanding how we were expected to commute to a job in 10 degree weather (thank God I have my boundaries now lol). Traveling an hour to Harlem for church on Sundays because it was the only spot that gave me those Southern Baptist feels (shoutout to Pastor Mike at FCBC). I loved every bit of it. 

I sit so proudly today knowing that I really did that shit. I dreamed my way into a reality that once was just chilling in my mind. A little girl from Tulsa, Oklahoma ushered herself to Houston for two degrees and a comfy lifestyle then turned life upside down in the best ways to move to one of the most complex cities in world.  Conquering this place has been no small feat. Hell, navigating pregnancy and becoming a first time mother with none of my family here was the MOST complicated. 

12 years later and nothing scares me here. And that’s half flex, and half not. I love that I expected nothing but magic in my life but it’s bittersweet that believed I had to run my nervous system into the ground to get it. I’m not mad at the trauma response of achievement and drive because it’s created such an abundantly beautiful life, but I am so grateful that I live softer now. 

I wholeheartedly trust in my path and believe that life is working for me. I’m able to exercise alongside sunsets in Dumbo overlooking the Manhattan skyline. I’ve had some of the largest media companies in the world come and seek me out. I’ve taught in the classroom of one of the most prestigious fashion universities in the country. Me and the kid will wake up and drive to Chinatown for boba and matcha ice cream just because. I’m fully raising a fly little Brooklyn girl from Canarsie and creating the healthiest life and experiences for her. I gained a whole family here between her beautiful family and my East Coast sisters. I’m Auntie Shani to a gang of nieces and nephews here. Summer BBQs and family functions. And when I travel away, it feels like a big exhale to land back at JFK and get back to the space that I’ve cultivated.

This wasn’t just a relocation across the country, these chapters further saved me. I’ve learned how how to come home to myself and have grown and healed a lifetime. God, my Guides and therapy led me to dive deep into a river of trauma and understand the why, what and how to things that have hurt for so long. I now love on myself, first. 

I’m often driving over the Manhattan Bridge to my office and remember that the sky could never even be the limit. My spirit knew that I was supposed to be here, exactly as I am, exactly in this moment. I will never, ever not be grateful for this journey and how I’ve been so covered. Deciding to take the risk has always reimbursed me with more than I could even imagine.

Every now then I’ll be running my mouth and someone will ask “where you from???” and I'm reminded that I still have a Southern accent and have indeed lived a few other lives before this one here:)

SHANI