Life Doesn’t Start at Conception

Some people think life starts at conception (idiots), but I believe life truly starts when you move out of your parent’s house. I grew up in Alaska and knew early on that I didn’t belong there.

Plotting my escape from Alaska at age five.

This face, body, and personality were way too good to be hidden underneath twelve layers of protective snow gear.

One of these siblings doesn’t belong here.

I preferred a concrete jungle over fields of frozen tundra. I wanted to hear the incessant honking of taxis over the deafening silence of the remote wilderness. And goddammit, I’d take the smell of hot subway piss any day over trying to breathe in forty-below weather.

I spent my entire life dreaming of the day I could move to New York City, and that’s exactly what I did on August 23, 2004.

BRB- Leaving my journalism job for the unknown.

I turned in my two weeks’ notice at my fancy TV news reporter job in Anchorage and bought a one-way ticket to Manhattan. My family and friends tried to talk me out of moving, especially since 9/11 was pretty fresh and Osama Bin Laden was still hiding in a cave somewhere.