a photo i took of 37th street, nowhere even remotely near union square, but it was new york city themed anyway, close enough :’)

1. my dad. 

   november 2010
   My dad takes me to Union Square to show me the East Coast’s version of TJ Maxx. We go up the escalators to the top floor of Filene’s Basement and press our faces against the floor to ceiling glass windows, looking down at the whole park below us. In my line of vision, so much is visible of where all of these things will happen in the years to come. 
   

2. my first friend in college.
   september 2010
   We don’t stay close after this. I often have a hard time latching onto new friendships the older I get. I am shy. I am not confident. I feel small. The first month I am living in New York City, my first friend in college and I go thrifting in the Lower East Side. On our walk back up to campus, we stop at a coffee truck parked at the corner of the Union Square park. I get an iced espresso something on an empty stomach. It is September and I am dying from the heat, sweat dripping down my arms. I have a winter coat in my shopping bag because I moved up here without one. We take the 1 train back to the dorms and by the time I am back in my room, I feel like I am going to die and I don’t know why. You should eat something, coffee can make you feel crazy if you have too much on an empty stomach, my thin model roommate from Westchester says to me. She is sitting on her bed with her boyfriend, another model who does runway or something. I can't remember what exactly. He’s tall and handsome and blonde. I Googled him once and found print ads of him online, he was legit. I leave and go get a large fries from McDonald’s and then curl into a ball on my bed the rest of the night, scared. 
   

3. my okcupid date.
   november 2011
   For our first date, we meet on the benches in Union Square park. He is tall and has curly brown hair and is a man. I had only dated boys before him. We never actually have sex but I hang out with him in his apartment several times. I take the 1 to the L and get off at First Avenue and weave my way into the maze that is Stuy-Town. He always has a red light on in his apartment. He has a king sized mattress on the floor. He has a tattoo under his belly button that says We ID. Years later, I watch an independent film on Netflix about a dominatrix living in the city, who takes one of her clients to the same benches we sat at and makes him put heels on her feet as she’s sitting down. Maybe it is actually a different park in the city, like Madison Square Park or something, but in my mind it is where me and my okcupid date met.
   

4. my best friend in college who moved away too soon.
   april 2012
   Me and my best friend in college who moved away too soon are walking around after lugging white trash bags filled with her unworn Free People clothes with tags on them still to the Buffalo Exchange next to campus. We wander and end up in Union Square and hear a band busking on the corner outside the subway station. It is pleasant music, the band is Spirit Family Reunion Band and I buy a CD from them. We sit on the steps and see a woman with long curly strawberry blonde hair standing in the middle of the plaza topless, protesting something. My best friend in college who moved away too soon is disgusted but I want to be that woman.
   

5. unknown waitress who is serving our table at the cute turquoise diner halfway down the park.
   december 2013
   I am at Coffee Shop with my friends from my college major for a Secret Santa dinner. The person I got asked for a twenty dollar Amazon gift card. Instead, I give her a folded twenty dollar bill in a handmade card because what a boring gift to ask for. She can just deposit it in her bank account if she really wants to spend it online. When the check arrives at our table, I leave my name and phone number on it because I thought our unknown waitress who is serving our table at the cute turquoise diner halfway down the park was cute and maybe making flirty eyes at me all throughout dinner. I never get a text or call from the unknown waitress who is serving our table at the cute turquoise diner halfway down the park, and I never see her again. 
   

6. my lesbian girlfriend with a boyfriend.
   may 2015
   Me, my best friend in college who moved away too soon and my lesbian girlfriend with a boyfriend all go shopping at the giant American Apparel store in Soho. We take the train back up to Union Square in our new outfits- my best friend in college who moved away too soon in a corset spaghetti strap leotard; my lesbian girlfriend with a boyfriend in a patterned baby doll dress; me in a pink striped short sleeve crew neck shirt and a tennis skirt. We all sit on the wide steps and joke that we are so pleased with our new back-to-school outfits and drink coffees like we are the cooler grittier versions of the cast of Gossip Girl who just went shopping at American Apparel. This is the last time I see my best friend in college who moved away too soon before she leaves to Europe and trips bad on drugs and texts me in the middle of the night when I am sandwiched between my lesbian girlfriend and her boyfriend, saying being gay is wrong only if you act on it. Nothing is the same after that, with my best friend in college who moved away too soon, with my lesbian girlfriend with a boyfriend, with me. 
   

7. the first person i ever kissed who was the same height as me.
   june 2015
   She takes me on a date to a Flo Rida concert on a yacht full of strangers. I think some random party promoter person got us in. Do you remember those? The random guys you would text and they would wait for you at the door and get you past the bouncer at the most exclusive clubs for twenty-something-year-olds and sometimes celebrities as long as you dressed slutty and classy at the same time and didn’t look twelve? On another date we spend all night out in Brooklyn and get cocaine from my boss’s friend and run around until dawn. She takes me to breakfast one morning after bribing me to skip work with my day’s pay, buys me a Marc Jacobs romper from a thrift store and yells at me and tells me I’m ungrateful. I am scared of her sudden 180 on me so I ghost her. We never hooked up. A few weeks later, we meet up again at the bottom of Union Square, where the old men play chess and the group of twenty plus people are sitting on a blanket making music with small bells and their throats. I need you to make an effort. Do you want to see me or not? the first person I ever kissed who was the same height as me asked me. Yes, I want to see you. She was so cute. But maybe also a little too hot and cold for me. After we kiss goodbye, I don’t make any more efforts to see her. 
   

8. my current partner of nine years.
   july 2015
   We meet for our second date where just weeks earlier, I said to the first person I ever kissed who was the same height as me I still wanted to see her and then didn’t. I leave work in Brooklyn early claiming period cramps and go on the train to go meet up with my current partner of nine years instead going home to lie in bed like I said I would. He wants to go to the shoe store and look at sneakers. When we first met, he was wearing shell-toed white Adidas sneakers. I had a pair in junior high with translucent purply-blue stripes. I thought they were ugly. I walk up the stairs from the L train exit and cross the street to the bottom of Union Square park and see him waiting for me in a swarm of strangers. The distance between us continues to shrink as I walk towards him. 
   

9. my first ex-girlfriend.
   september 2017
   My current partner of nine years and I are standing on the subway platform waiting for the L train after going to an author reading I won tickets for on Instagram at The Strand. We had just been informed by the person hosting the reading that their celebrity best friend was obsessed with our greeting card company we had just started that year. I feel like I am going to pass out, because I am obsessed with this celebrity, too. We are grinning at each other on the subway platform and saying how exciting this is, that we have to go out to dinner and celebrate or something, how nice it is to be noticed, when my first ex-girlfriend walks past us with her new girlfriend, another short girl just like me. I pretend I don’t see her when they both station themselves a few feet away from us. I turn my back to her and continue talking to my current partner of nine years, as if my first ex-girlfriend doesn’t exist. She isn’t allowed to ruin this moment so I don't let her. The last time I see her, she is crossing the street wearing white high top sneakers and a navy peacoat, holding hands with her new girlfriend. Neither of them notice me. 
   

10. the man who makes my soul leave my body momentarily while trying to sell me on a celebrity-grade haircut.
    august 2019
    I let the man who makes my soul leave my body momentarily while trying to sell me on a celebrity-grade haircut punish me with his boring words because I don’t have anything left in me to make him stop. This might be a turning point for me, of realizing that I needed to get out of this fucking city. I was walking to the Union Square L train station from my job in Flatiron because it was a rough day at work and I needed the fresh air. And by rough, I mean I sat at my computer and stared at the screen and talked to no one except to say chicken and rice, extra white sauce and thank you to the halal cart guy around lunch. And by fresh air, I mean the hot liquid garbage scent of August in the city. I am halfway down the West side of the park when the man who makes my soul leave my body momentarily while trying to sell me on a celebrity-grade haircut is holding a laminated brochure in front of my face and starts talking at me. I submit. He goes on and on and on and for some reason I just let him keep going. After ten minutes of wasting my time but also me not doing anything about it, I say I’m good, and continue walking. After I leave, I am angry at myself for letting my comatose brain state take me over like that. Never again.
    

11. my side piece turned girlfriend.
    april 2024
    We start seeing each other right as I’m being broken up with by someone else. My side piece turned girlfriend gets to experience me in my post-breakup aura: a panicked, shattered and shell-shocked version of myself. Two months into seeing each other, we stay in her apartment in the city. I am close to a panic attack on the drive down and try to hide it. I end up not. We get drunk and fuck on her couch that night and everything feels so much better than it did earlier in the day. The next morning, I can’t stop crying. We get breakfast to go and walk to Union Square together. We need to pause. I need some space, I said to her. I cry some more. She maybe shed a single tear because she is good at not crying in front of people. My side piece turned girlfriend looks hot but I am tired and depleted and I don’t know why it hit me like this like a bag of fucking bricks all of the sudden. We walk back to the apartment and say goodbye to each other. It’s not the last time we see each other, though.