Been 2(00)6
On April 3, 2010, at 3:15pm, I turn exactly 30 years old. This post
is part of a very ambitious effort to share each of the last 10 years.
Thanks to Mike and his recap of the
2000's for the inspiration.
On the second day of 2006, Amber and I were officially together. I'll spare the mushy details, but living in NYC drastically improved. We were still working together through the winter until her internship ended that March. (As Amber likes to tell it, we'd secretly make out in the elevators to hide from the bosses.) She still had that last semester to finish up at Hyper Island, but working full-time and finishing the senior project in the States instead of Sweden was common. So by mid-March, she went from intern to senior designer at a different shop - leapfrogging a few years of her career plan - and spent the following two months finishing up her senior project.
One Saturday morning in June, we decided to go out to brunch at a diner near DUMBO. After the meal, we walked around and stumbled on a little real estate agency a few doors down from the diner. The front door was propped open, and as we looked at the listings in the window, the agent inside said hello and started chatting us up.
At the time, having been together all of about 5 months, Amber and I were still living separately and hadn't had any explicit discussions on moving in together. Looking in the real estate agency window, we were basically doing The NYC Thing, where everyone looks at real estate all the time, for no particular reason at all. But a few minutes into our conversation and the real estate agent had us intrigued on a brand new listing that wasn't yet in the window: a garden apartment in a gorgeous Brooklyn Heights brownstone. So before we knew it, the three of us were walking from the agency to the apartment to scout it out.
Late the year before, not long after I started working at that job, the MTA had a strike and shut down public transportation for a few days. The two partners put together car pools to ensure we could all get to work in the freezing cold winter. I had been living in Windsor Terrace, so my ride into the office included driving through Brooklyn Heights to get into DUMBO. (I had only been living in Brooklyn for about 2 months, so getting around and checking out new neighborhoods hadn't really happened.) I remember looking out the window as we drove along the stretch of Clark Street, wondering what gorgeous neighborhood we had stumbled into. In the sparkly cold Brooklyn Heights was magical, and in the ensuing months Amber and I would occasionally sneak walks together at lunch to explore the neighborhood. It was a kind of coveted plan for us to someday move there, and here we were looking at an apartment together in the today, not the someday.
We weren't - and aren't - one of those couples that rushes into things too quickly. But in the guise of Amber's rapid career ascent, as we looked at this amazing apartment, we knew we had to have it. And on July 1, we moved in - together - officially starting our lives together at the newly-dubbed 123 Awesome Street.
On the second day of 2006, Amber and I were officially together. I'll spare the mushy details, but living in NYC drastically improved. We were still working together through the winter until her internship ended that March. (As Amber likes to tell it, we'd secretly make out in the elevators to hide from the bosses.) She still had that last semester to finish up at Hyper Island, but working full-time and finishing the senior project in the States instead of Sweden was common. So by mid-March, she went from intern to senior designer at a different shop - leapfrogging a few years of her career plan - and spent the following two months finishing up her senior project.
One Saturday morning in June, we decided to go out to brunch at a diner near DUMBO. After the meal, we walked around and stumbled on a little real estate agency a few doors down from the diner. The front door was propped open, and as we looked at the listings in the window, the agent inside said hello and started chatting us up.
At the time, having been together all of about 5 months, Amber and I were still living separately and hadn't had any explicit discussions on moving in together. Looking in the real estate agency window, we were basically doing The NYC Thing, where everyone looks at real estate all the time, for no particular reason at all. But a few minutes into our conversation and the real estate agent had us intrigued on a brand new listing that wasn't yet in the window: a garden apartment in a gorgeous Brooklyn Heights brownstone. So before we knew it, the three of us were walking from the agency to the apartment to scout it out.
Late the year before, not long after I started working at that job, the MTA had a strike and shut down public transportation for a few days. The two partners put together car pools to ensure we could all get to work in the freezing cold winter. I had been living in Windsor Terrace, so my ride into the office included driving through Brooklyn Heights to get into DUMBO. (I had only been living in Brooklyn for about 2 months, so getting around and checking out new neighborhoods hadn't really happened.) I remember looking out the window as we drove along the stretch of Clark Street, wondering what gorgeous neighborhood we had stumbled into. In the sparkly cold Brooklyn Heights was magical, and in the ensuing months Amber and I would occasionally sneak walks together at lunch to explore the neighborhood. It was a kind of coveted plan for us to someday move there, and here we were looking at an apartment together in the today, not the someday.
We weren't - and aren't - one of those couples that rushes into things too quickly. But in the guise of Amber's rapid career ascent, as we looked at this amazing apartment, we knew we had to have it. And on July 1, we moved in - together - officially starting our lives together at the newly-dubbed 123 Awesome Street.