Like Margaret did to God, I asked the Empire State Building a lot of questions this summer. Unlike Margaret, these questions didn’t revolve around puberty.
You see, this summer I had a direct view of the Empire State Building from my (summer housing) dorm room window in New York. I had a double room to myself, with enormous windows. And when I say direct view I mean direct view: it was a 10th-floor dorm on 15th and 2nd, right across Stuyvesant Park,* so there was zero obstruction of the building.
If you think I just got assigned this room – think again, my friends. I moved in around midnight the night before the first day of my internship, and I was originally assigned to the first floor in a suite with 5 other girls (4 of whom were from the same Christian sorority in Texas). My view faced the back of the building and included some concrete, the end of the trash chutes, and a couple dozen mice. They were pretty cute to watch for the first twenty minutes or so, until I found one in my room. And then another. And another. At this point it was 2 am and I had to be up at 8. Unclear if I should embrace this New York moment or go into full panic mode instead, I texted a handful of friends and family members who lived in Manhattan to gather consensus. All of them agreed that it was gross, but suggested that I chill the f*** out and go to bed.
So naturally, I made the rational and not at all obnoxious decision to text every single R.A. on duty and ask if there were any available rooms I could move into for the night. And that is the story of how a (rightfully) annoyed and sleepy R.A. moved me into a 10th floor double room at 3 in the morning, with the final words “We’ve like never had mice get past the 7th floor, I think,” and how I made that room my permanent pad for the rest of the summer.
Thus began my summer!
I don’t know what it is about internships, and heat, and the smell of trash, but the combination of these made every single moment of every day trigger a quarter-life crisis for me, such as….
Do I like this internship? Would I work here after college? Is this even the industry I want to go into? Why have only 90% of the 764569 people I’ve emailed for informational interviews responded? Does the occasional praise I get in this Improv 101 class mean that I should be an actress? I should be a screenwriter. I should definitely just go into consulting. I should totally be a comedian, that was such a funny thing I said two days ago. What if all this time that I’ve been avoiding science classes, my calling is to actually be a doctor? Maybe I should start an app. Should I have learned how to code? Is Annie’s Mac n Cheese a full dinner? Will this Trader Joe’s cashier judge me for buying a bottle of wine at 3pm, even though it’s actually for tonight? Should I tell her it’s for tonight when I check out or does she not really care? How do women wear flats every day to work and not get blisters? Why does every woman between the age of 18 and 35 in this city own this blue Zara dress, and should I buy one, and also how much has Zara profited off of this design???
Yet despite these many crises, at the end of each and every day, the Empire State Building was there outside my window in his usual spot, just waiting for me. I started to empathize with this lonely building that was way taller and more famous than all the buildings around him. He had like no friends, you guys. And I have many great and wonderful friends, but alas, they were not physically outside my window – and the Empire State Building was!
So I started to talk to him! Not out loud, don’t worry. I would lay in bed, listening to sirens and just staring up at this enormous (and, might I add, unbelievably phallic building). And thus a friendship was born.
Did you non-New Yorkers know that the Empire State Building is constantly being lit up for different holidays and events? Because I did not, but this is a very real thing. It became kind of a game for me to guess what the colors could signify. Some were easier than others: Obviously the building was lit up red, white, and blue for 4th of July, and rainbow for Pride Week. Others were more difficult and required a little Googling around (yes, I really did). Did you know that July 17th is World Emoji Day? Or that June 27th was the 10th anniversary of Qatar airlines flying to the U.S.? Because I did not, and now I do! And now you do too!!
So this was our friendship: I would try to guess the significance of his colors, and he would read my mind and listen to all my life crises. It was a pretty damn good system. Unlike Margaret, I don’t talk to God, and I have thankfully surpassed the 6th grade. But like Margaret, I do have a shiny magical friend up there in the sky!!
*Footnote for Mom: It’s okay for me to give out my address because I no longer live there, so my many fans and stalkers that will inevitably show up at this address will be disappointed.
Image via.