This wasn’t what I had in mind when I decided to move my life to New York City. I wasn’t supposed to be writing obituaries for a newspaper no one reads. I studied journalism and was at the top of my class at NYU for crying out loud. And here they had me sitting at a desk writing in 3-4 sentences the lives of people that were no longer here.

I had tried so hard to make NYC my home, but I still couldn’t get myself to call it that. I had met some amazing people here and formed some lasting friendships, even more important I had discovered myself. I had enough freedom to be who I wanted to be without having to worry about making someone else happy.

That had been my life before I moved out here. I was always guided by what other people wanted, my mother to be exact. I lived my life trying to please her and not myself, and by doing so for so long I had lost so many of the things that were most important to me. I had replaced what I wanted with what she wanted for me. I wasn’t happy for a while after that. Having to give up something I loved more than anything else in my life. A mistake I’ll forever regret. But that was the past and things are different now. I’m living the life I somewhat want to live and worrying about my own happiness as opposed to anyone else’s.

Getting up from my desk I wander into the staffroom where everyone comes and gathers for their coffee fix, or to have their lunch. There’s no water cooler talk, mostly because we don’t have one. any of the people that work here are around the same age, all of us needing a stepping stone into the writing world. All of us not exactly happy with our current jobs. It’s sort of bonded us all together, giving us more than enough to talk about and share in common.

"Good morning beautiful" breaks me out of my thoughts.

I smile because I know who it is even before I turn around. With the smile still on my lips I turn around and hand her a coffee. Melanie is one of those amazing people I was talking about. She writes for travel section of the paper, and is one of the few of us who doesn’t mind her job. We went out a few times when we first met each other, but soon realized it wasn’t going to work because kissing her felt like incest. She was one of my best friends and the type of girl that you would use your one call in prison on. She was always there for the people she loved. She had guided me through New York living and given me a crash course in what to do and not to do. She was the first girl I let myself date once moving out here, and through her I realized my own happiness was more important than my mothers. A mistake I realized a little too late.