Two people who loved me a lot and often, and I’m trying to feel that way forever

—

After college, everything seemed possible and everything felt unknown. Moving to NYC was a complete shit show. I didn’t know how someone actually lived there. After spending some time in Greenwich, found my way to NYC and with the same luck, almost like dejavu, saw Cate (on a run) outside of Shu Jiao Fu Zhou. She was living with Kira, and I was so quickly added to their little friend group.

What assuaged my concerns about being an outsider, was we had a SF based mission: befriending Pearl. Kira and Cate, were told by Isaac, that his long time lover/girlfriend was working near our apartments in Chinatown. Kira, with the most tact, slowly schemed to bring this sexy, smart, powerful, tall woman into our lives.

Slowly, but not that slowly, we did. We were a little foursome. We weren’t each other’s only friends obviously, but a group I was so so grateful to have. They felt like home, when everyone else felt kinda like strangers. Everyone from Cornell understood NYC. It was my classmate’s home, it was where their family was. Kira, Cate, and now Pearl was a home for me.

Now, onto mission 2: how to get Isaac to move to NYC. This mission was less clear to me. I only knew about their relationship(?) from the outside. I wasn’t really that close with Isaac. I hadn’t spoken to him since high school.

The second I saw him, I knew how much he wanted to be in NYC. Honestly, the concerns of will he have friends, hobbies, be in a new city quite simply did not seem to matter him. He had spent so much time trying to make it work with Pearl. He knew this was his shot at love, and why wait any longer. He graduated and found his way to us.

They really did work to make it work. They did the college long distance. Isaac finished college and found work in NYC to be with Pearl. Pearl found the right balance to get him over here. They were in so much love and it wasn’t annoying (at least for me as someone who didn’t live with them).

They had me over for Thanksgiving, for dinners, for the times when I felt like NYC was not made for me. For when my college friends would be doing their like NYC-elite-rich people that made me feel like such an outsider.

They taught me to how to work for love. I don’t think that I would have been able to do my long distance relationship with Chris, without having them as a model of what could be. I don’t think I could’ve taken the jump to move to Atlanta without watching Isaac. I don’t think I could have the confidence in my own career without watching Pearl’s relationship with work and being a girlboss.

//