A Crush

Falling in love is a funny thing.

 

In my experience, it’s a gradual process. But it comes to a point — it has to. The days you spend with someone pass by and pile up. Each time, you go to bed and you’re simply — in the complete and utter definition of the word — happy. But then, one morning, you wake up and just know.

 

I think that moment came for me on August 4, 2013.

 

Meg and I had gone into the city the day before. We wanted to treat ourselves a little bit, or maybe just pretend we were adults before we became adults.

 

Either way, we went to the Museum of Natural History, walked around Central Park and Google Mapsed our way through a subway system we had no business navigating. I spent an entire deli paycheck on that day. But it was worth it, because I was with her.

 

And really, that’s probably how I started to figure it out. At every point, I just remember thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to do this for a while. I guess my hunch was right. It’s been six years now.

 

But there’s another memory that particularly sticks out to me about that day.

 

We got a cab from Penn Station to the museum. At one point we ended up on Eighth Avenue, and I glanced out the window to the right.

 

There it was, a 52-story behemoth of a skyscraper. It would’ve been like any other building in the city if not for the four words sprawled across its face.

 

The New York Times.

 

As I stared up at it, the words jumped out of my mouth: “I'm going to write there someday.” 

 

The puzzled look on Meg’s face matched what I was feeling. To this day, I don’t know why I said it. I’d never taken a journalism class, never written a word that wasn’t required for a high school essay. My high school had a newspaper, but I was more interested in playing sports than writing about them.

 

Eventually, she asked what I meant. I told her I didn’t know, which I didn’t. The plan, to that point, had always been to go to college and lock down some “secure” job — at least, by traditional standards. Maybe become an accountant or something, since it seemed to run in the family.

 

The day went on. I woke up the next day, confident that I loved a girl. Unbeknownst to me, maybe I was falling in love with a profession too.

 

But that’s a gradual process.