If you’ve been here since the beginning, you have known my husband since the aughts (nearly), back when he was emoji-bf. We’ve come a long way; today, we are now married two whole years. And it’s a happy occasion!
I feel the need to say that because a lot of times in the past year when people wish me Happy Something, it’s not happy at all. Birthday? Not happy, a cruel demarcation of time and my waning fertility. Hanukkah and Christmas? Not happy, as my matching PJ sets (mom, dad and baby) sit in my parent’s basement because I can’t have them in my house.
But anniversary? Definitely happy. I’m so, so happy that I found a partner, and that he has been everything and more to me.
Last year on our first anniversary of marriage, I was on a hiatus from the blog, and kind of on a hiatus from life in general. But this year, I need to celebrate it. In fact, I had a completely different blog scheduled to go out today and I delayed it because this is more important.
There’s a trend on TikTok at the moment that says “please explain to me what you mean by marriage is hard,” and then people stitch together moments of their husbands leaving food on the counter, or leaving their dirty socks beside, not inside, the hamper.
All of those things are hard. But you know what’s REALLY hard? Having your first child die in the first year of your marriage. That is brutally hard. And you know the tough part? In the second year of marriage, your child is still dead. Hard.
But we’re still here.
I’ve seen a meme on Instagram before that says you can predict how badly a relationship is going by how much the couple writes mushy stuff about each other on social media. I consider myself exempt from that. My sweet husband had literally no idea I was going to write this. Hell, I didn’t know either until I couldn’t stop reflecting and decided to put my thoughts in a document at midnight last night. To be honest, he probably won’t love this post (way too many private feelings on the internet!), but it’s all true.
Marriage is hard. But it’s also the best thing ever.
We chose to get married at a resort in Mexico, and we knew we probably wouldn’t be the only couple with the same idea. The resort was like a well-oiled machine, they clearly hosted weddings there often. But when we arrived, we realized there was actually only one other couple getting married the same day/weekend as us, and coincidentally, the groom had the same name as my husband! We ran into them after each of our ceremonies, when we were both walking around the hotel with our respective photography teams taking pictures. We even made our photographers take a photo of the four of us together!
Three months after our wedding, we were on our belated honeymoon in Curacao when I got a text from the bride. Her husband was in a horrific accident, and he had died. She told me to “cherish every day.”
I won’t say I have been cherishing every day, some of them have been really, really shitty, but I have definitely been trying my best to cherish my relationship.
In classic wedding vows, you say, “in sickness and in health.” I never realized how much that would be necessary in our first few years of marriage, both in physical and mental health. I used to cringe when I heard brides say to their grooms in their vows that their husbands-to-be were their best friends. How strange, while surrounded by their real best friends up at the altar!
Now, I get it. Not only do I get it, I say it literally every day to my husband, “you’re my best friend in the whole wide world.” Like, probably 5 times a day. He is the only person who has been there every day, and there are many days when he is the only person I talk to.
He was not just there with me in the hospital, but he’s there with me at home. He has seen the many times I’ve been crying in the corner of the couch. He has talked to me on the phone during a panic attack. He has left the room because his presence was making me nervous while I was taking my blood pressure. Sometimes he leaves me alone, especially at my request. But sometimes, he knows I could use a distraction and he plans a staycation, or a vacation, or he just calls an Uber and takes me to Brookfield Place so I can walk around and get some physical activity without getting sweaty. He gets me, he accepts me, and he’s there for me.
Every relationship has trials and tribulations. I didn’t realize our first bout of them would arrive so quickly, but they did.
I don’t think anyone in the world would come to me for relationship advice. Mostly because I’m a hot mess and I don’t think anyone would come to me for any kind of advice. But if anyone ever asked me, I would say communication is key. This seems obvious, but especially in our relationship where we are so completely different in our personalities and communication styles, it’s important that we keep open lines of both talking and listening. We’ve done a lot of both over the past two years, and I hope it continues.
I know our next year will be even better. Not because I know we will have a living baby, that is very much out of our hands. But I know, because we love each other more every day. Happy anniversary my love (if you ever read this). I love you to the next galaxy and back.
Well, not to me me, but to LongLegsBigCity! Yesterday was the one year post-iversary of my very first blog entry, Tips for NYC Living. Not only is it my post-iversary, but this is my 100th post on my blog! It seems like yesterday that I was watching WordPress tutorials on YouTube all day every day, trying to figure out how to get something I wrote up on the internet for all to see. In my original welcome post to my blog, I told you what my blog would NOT be (a health, fashion, travel, dating, legal advice blog), and I have mostly stuck to those things. I am still figuring out exactly what my blog is, but so far it has been a mix of everything that makes me, me! LongLegsBigCity, a blog about my NYC problems, my life, my explorations of new fitness studios, and a few serious pieces.
I am officially at 84 blog subscribers, and I have even figured out how to make a weekly RSS newsletter using Mailchimp (this is why you need to subscribe, guys! Don’t you want to see my hilarious weekly TBT pics!? Put your email address in that annoying popup box when you go to my site!). So far, I have not achieved my ultimate goal for the blog: my dream of being discovered as a super funny, witty, hilarious, young female writer. If you know anyone at Betches, NY Mag, or any other publications, HOOK ME UP! Tell them how cool I am and how I can write about anything from 6-figure student loan debt to How to Be a Professional Wedding Guest.
I have tried to increase my social media presence (not many of you even thought this was possible), and I now have a LongLegsBigCity Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, and even Goodreads. Not all 84 of my subscribers have been with me all year, so as a celebration of my one year of blogging, and in commemoration of my 100th post, I wanted to recap my first year. I’ll even include some internal links in case you missed something you wish you hadn’t, or if you want to reread about my all-time favorite NYC Ice Cream in preparation for a trip to the big apple. I have recently added share buttons to each of my posts so you can share them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or by email (or print them, for those technologically challenged among us). Please feel free to share and spread the word. I love to write, which is why I started this baby blog to begin with, but I love it more when I get feedback! Thank you all for reading and for supporting me in this side project of mine. I appreciate you all!
The blog started with a bang. I decided to start with a list post about my Tips for NYC Living. Then, I shifted gears to talk about the biggest thing that was happening in my life: Half Marathon Training. I wanted to complete a half marathon before I turned 30, and my training was sidelined when I sprained my ankle weeks before the race. I still managed to finished, and posted yet another list post about my stream of consciousness thoughts as I ran 13.1 miles on a bum ankle. As you may have recently read, I have 2 healthy-ish ankles now and I am on a NEW quest to complete a FULL marathon by the end of 2019. Fingers Crossed! My half marathon posts got some of the most comments I ever received on my blog. Maybe that the real reason I decided to run a full…
In May, I talked a bit about my birthday, being a Gemini and about trying to get in control of my finances. Personally, I loved writing about trying to use mint.com. Surprise, I’m still using it religiously. Surprise, I’m still not saving any more money. HA!.
Then the real fun began when I decided I would eat at 30 different ice cream places in 30 days for my 30th birthday. This quest became known as #30Years30IceCreams, a hashtag that continues to live on in infamy
Happy Birthday to me!
So. Much. Ice. Cream.
I made the reveal announcement on May 11th and then I posted weekly recaps throughout the rest of the month (1, 2, 3), going into June. These posts became reallllyyy long and unwieldy. I had a ranking system, I had reviews, I had external links, and I had so many pictures. TBH I think most people just scrolled through the text for the pics.
June 2017 – Mommy’s Girl, Ex-Lawyer, Ex-Jew, OkCupid, Travel and MORE ICE CREAM!
Wow, I did a lot of posting in June. It must have been a slow time at work! After the unwieldy posts about ice cream (those took SO MUCH TIME to write!), I started to get into the vibe of writing more about myself. I wrote about being Jew-ish (amazing throwback pics in that one), and I wrote another stream of consciousness post on my 2nd anniversary with emoji bf, about my thoughts on our first date. I loved writing that one, and I got the most comments! My favorite part of that post was finding the perfect emoji to put on his face for each photo. I traveled to Montreal with emoji-man for our anniversary, and I took my first stab at travel-blogging. In retrospect, I think I wrote a little too much. I tried to work on that for later posts. But if you’re interested in Montreal, check it out!
Some people may think my most useful post was published in June, about Drinking in New York without breaking the bank. And then of course, MORE ICE CREAM! The Scooper Bowl, Week 4, and the final summary. Check out the summary for my favorite ones! I consumed all those calories so you didn’t have to. Speaking of calories, June is the first time I did a review of fitness studio, 305 Fitness. This became a trend. More fitness reviews coming in the future!
Also, I posted about my borderline-obsessive communication with my mom. I call her every day. And/or text. And/or email. And/or tag her on Facebook. She still wants to guest-blog for me at some point. Stay tuned!
Most importantly, I posted my first blog about being a “Recovering Attorney,” and why I always advise everyone I know to avoid law school at all costs. And the costs are high. Like hundreds of thousands high. This remains my 2nd most popular post of all time, with 245 views. Feel free to share it with your friends, and not share it with your enemies if you wish 6-figure debt on them.
July 2017 – Summer in NYC, Travel, and more Fitness Reviews
In July, I started to get into real blogs about things happening in my life, from working in a construction zone, to rainy days in NYC, to super, super hot subway cars. Here’s what I found: people didn’t really care. People tended not to read these, at least according to my site analytics. I’m not sure what that says about me or my life; either I’m boring, or people just DGAF. Or maybe people didn’t know I was hilarious yet. I’m hilarious, right? Maybe now that they know, they’ll click back and read them. Probably not.
I had a few more reads on my travel posts, maybe because I wrote a bit less than that first post in Montreal, and focused on the big events on my trips. Also, I’m pretty sure EVERYONE loves looking at ridiculous photos of me on Segways. I went to Traver’s Island for the 4th of July, I went to DC for a wedding, AND I went down the shore in New Jersey. Busy month.
I also continued with reviews of fitness classes. I went to The Dance and Orangetheory in July. More importantly, I introduced the world to my addition: my Fitbit. It goes everywhere with me. It did in July and it still does now.
August 2017 – Full Time Slavery, Fitness, and STUDENT LOANS
I started the month of August in Pennsylvania, helping my mom rehab after her hip replacement surgery. I lovingly called my post about my time there “My Life as a Full Time Slave.” This post had a surprising amount of views. I secretly think this is because half of my 84 subscribers are my mom’s friends. I’m semi-positive of this. My mom is my biggest fan, after all. She comments on almost all of my posts!
She was up and walking around with a cane one week after surgery!
August brought more fitness posts, including a review of my all-time favorite spin studio in NYC, Peloton. Although this was the first time I mentioned Peloton, it was not the last, and I’m sure there are even more to come. I also talked about how to join a gym for free, and about a free rooftop class I attended in NYC. Free is my favorite price. Another trend on my blog. Why? Because of my student debt.
The most important post of the month was the beginning of my exposé about my student loans. To date, this is the most read post I have ever written. I spent months thinking about possibly talking about my loans, but I was embarrassed about it. I waffled back and forth for a few weeks and surveyed some friends to see if they would be interested in reading it. Ultimately, they all said yes, but I was still scared to talk about it. After some introspection, I decided that was the perfect way to start the conversation. Why was I so embarrassed? Why was I scared to speak about it? Doesn’t everyone have loans? Clearly people related to my story, or at least empathized; it has 279 views!
September 2017 – New York on 9-11, Park City, and MORE student loans
September began in a very New York Fashion, with a mystery date pulled off seamlessly by emoji boyfriend, including a hotel room overlooking the Freedom Tower, the night before 9-11. I talked about our date, and what it’s like to live in NYC every year on this somber day.
Check out that view!
Emoji-man did well.
I also recapped some September travel; I was a busy bee! I went to Florida and Park City, Utah, where I stayed in the coolest house I’ve ever been in. I also continued my saga about student loans, and I actually revealed the amount of money I owe. Spoiler alert, it’s more than $100K. GASP. Pause for heart defibrillation. I wrote another post about how this massive debt hanging over my head affects my decisions, everything from whether to get Starbucks, to when or if I can ever think about having children. It was a heavy month.
October 2017 – Fitness & Spotify, Finale of Student Loan Saga, and Halloween/Costuming Madness
I started the month with some light-hearted content (to take a break from that student-loan-downer-crap) about fitness classes. I tried BollyX for the first time, and I had a participant in my Spin class make a playlist and be my guest DJ for the night. I also introduced my readers to my Spotify for the first time. Follow me if you want two amazing playlists every week! Hint: My username is LongLegsBigCity.
I finally finished my student loan memoir by talking about how I am trying to pay them off. I provided some practical tips, but more than anything I just told my story. Take it or leave it. It’s my blog and I’ll write if I want to.
October would not be complete without at least 4 posts about my favorite holiday of the year: HALLOWEEN!! Most likely I will post 2-3 times about Halloween every year, in perpetuity. This year, I wrote a poem the night before the Halloween Pub Crawl, I wrote about the crawl itself, I wrote about an adventure upstate to the Great Jack-O-Lantern Blaze, AND I wrote about my all-time favorite pastime: DIY costuming. Are we cute? DUH.
So cute.
November 2017 – Marathon Sunday, Macy’s Parade, and moreeee weddings
November is the month of my 3 favorite events of the year, Marathon Sunday, the VS Fashion Show, AND the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. If you think I’m kidding about that last one, you don’t know me, or you haven’t been following this blog very carefully. This year, I posted not 1, not 2, but THREE times about Thanksgiving and the Macy’s Parade. I wish I could promise you I wouldn’t do it again, but like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie.
Thanking NYPD <3 For a safe race!
Even Emoji BF was there for the fun!
Cheering on the stragglers!
Picked up the sister!
Gold Stars for the first time in memory. Merry Christmas!
November was also all about weddings. I attended 2, in 2 different states (neither of them was New York), and I posted about my trip to Durham, North Carolina as well as another great list post of my tips on how to be a Professional Wedding Guest. And I am one. It must be true, it’s in my Instagram Bio.
Church Wedding.
Beach Wedding.
Outdoor Nature Preserve Wedding.
Emoji BF clearly LOVES a good photobooth.
December 2017 – Winter/Christmas in NY, #MeToo and New Year Resolutions
Winter finally arrived, so I posted about the first NYC snow, the magic that comes along with it, and the piles of sludge and yellow snow that come after it. I also wrote about an NYC staple: Christmas at Rolf’s.
I tackled my first serious post since my student loan saga when I posted about My Worst First, one of my many #MeToo experiences. This was my 4th-most viewed post, and it was another one I was initially afraid to post. Being vulnerable on the internet is a scary thing, but ultimately I think people enjoy reading it, whether it is to secretly troll me or because they actually relate to my stories and appreciate them because they make people feel less alone. I prefer to think it is the second reason. Speaking of trolls, I got a NOT-so-secret one on that post that was nasty and I did not approve his comment. I was semi-honored to have a troll at all though, not gonna lie.
I closed out the year by talking about resolutions, both my general thoughts about them, and my personal resolutions. Stay tuned this year to see if I followed through!
January 2018 – Midnight Run, West Coast Travels, and Moving Saga
My year began with a bang. A very, very, very cold bang. I ran the Midnight Race in Central Park in temperatures lower than 20 Fahrenheit. This run inspired me to start signing up for races again, and led to my decision to embark on 9+1, the road to the TCS New York marathon, which I did not actually write about until two days ago.
My month was dominated by two huge events: a west coast trip to Seattle and Vancouver to visit my best friend, and trying to find a place to live in New York. Yes, it was difficult to do both of those things simultaneously. I was worried we would be homeless. Spoiler Alert: we are not. I also was worried that our old, TERRIBLE leasing company would swindle us out of thousands of dollars. Spoiler Alert: They did not, but they sure tried to. I used that Esq. after my name in every dang email I sent. It was a veritable saga.
Very. Very. Very. Cold Race.
Everyone loves a good Segway Pic.
February 2018 – Moving, West Coast Ice Cream, and Sara Bareilles in Waitress on Broadway
February was a crazy busy month for me between moving (we found a place, YAY!) and a 10-day work trip to California. I posted about the horrific experience of moving in NYC, as well as a quick west coast edition of #30Years30IceCreams. It had been almost 8 months since I talked about ice cream, I knew you guys missed it.
March 2018 – Reading, SoulCycle, and My Missing IUD
I wrote a 3-part series about reading, which is what I am usually doing when I’m not writing. I am addicted to Goodreads, where you can follow me and read along.
Although I only posted a few times in March, I wrote two of my top 10 posts during this month. First, I wrote about another personal saga, when my IUD disappeared inside my uterus. I guess I decided that there is no such thing as boundaries for me.
Lastly, I posted about my hatred for SoulCycle. I got another troll comment! I really made it!
We made it! We finally got to the current month. If you have read this whole recap, you are a real, true, LongLegsBigCity fan. Hi, Mommy! I think it’s just you and me, now. I can’t wait for your comment!
This month I talked about old people and technology (with a special shoutout to my mom), and I began my 9+1 journey with you on my way to the TCS NYC Marathon aka #SoreLegsLongDistance.
I hope you all continue to follow along on this blogging side hustle of mine in 2018 and beyond. I appreciate all of your reads, and I absolutely LOVE getting comments! I promise to reply to each of you. Until I get super, crazy famous, that is, and there are just wayyy too many to reply to. Considering I still don’t have 100 subscribers, and my mom is usually the only one who comments, I can probably keep this promise for a while.
If anyone wants to get me a cake for my 1-year-blog-iversary, I won’t say no. Or ice cream.
Today is my 2-year anniversary. Scratch that, my boyfriend thinks that today is our 2-year anniversary. If you ask me, it isn’t until August 1. But we can both agree that today is the 2-year anniversary of our first date. It’s in my Google calendar, which is shared with his Google calendar, and therefore, it is true.
It’s our anniversary of our first date, which also means it’s the anniversary of me meeting him since we met on OkCupid. That also means that before 2 years ago today, I had no idea that he existed. Maybe I knew a little bit through a few messages, but of course that doesn’t mean that he was who he said he was. Nev, Max, and way too many seasons of Catfish have taught us that.
On the night of our first date, I almost stood him up. Too much time watching Catfish, I guess. And To Catch a Predator. Damn you, Chris Hansen. But honestly, there are so many things that can go wrong on a first online date. You’ve never met the guy, you don’t know any of his friends to vouch for him, and you probably haven’t been able to stalk him too much online with very little information. (JK I knew this guy’s entire family tree before going out on a date with him… but I’m a pro). Anyway, point is, it’s a crap-shoot.
I was on OkCupid for 5 whole years before I met my 😊-boyfriend, which provided me with a lot of blog material. My bf won’t let me talk about him on here, and he won’t let me show his face, but he didn’t say I couldn’t talk about how I felt about him! For today, as a celebration of our anniversary/first-date-iversary, I am going to share with you a recounting of the moments on OkCupid leading up to our first date in stream of consciousness, since I was lucky enough to say “f*ck it,” and I met up with my ❤ two years ago today:
New message. And this one says more than “hey.”
*quick scan* Nothing sexually explicit, I’ll read on.
OMG he mentioned that I am a law student, did he actually read my profile? This might be good.
Sh*t what does my profile actually say? I better re-read that.
HAHA I’m funny. Ok, no wonder he messaged me.
Hmmm ok so my profile is a little bit out of date, I graduated law school two years ago. Should I tell him?
I guess I should at least write this guy back. He did read my profile.
We have written each other four times now. Maybe he just wants a pen pal?
I don’t have time for a freaking pen pal. I’m 28! Eff this guy.
But maybe I should take screen shots of his profile just in case. Then I can show my friends what he looks like without him knowing I go on his page every day.
He wrote me again! How many messages are we going to write??
He seems really nice. Should I ask him out? LOL jk def not. He’s probably a serial killer.
Yassss he asked me for my number.
Damnit but now I have to wait around and see if he texts me.
He’s probably not a serial killer. Unless he is…
Hold on, I never told him my name!!
Is he going to call me LawyerWithLegs if we meet IRL?
Ok, I usually don’t double-message but I should probably tell him my name before we meet.
He texted me! He sounded semi-normal.
He asked me out for this week. Crap. I’m busy every single day this week. I should have realized that before.
Wait, why isn’t HE busy every single day? This is NYC! Is he a loser?
I’m free Friday… but do I really want to waste a Friday night hanging out with some rando I’ve never met?
Alright fine. My dad asked me 3 years ago if I froze my eggs. I should probably try and date.
He’s free Friday. Hmmm, no grammar errors. That would have been an easy excuse for me to cancel.
Why is the subway 3 blocks from my apartment?? And why did I agree to go on a date in June?
Good thing I just spent 2 hours getting ready, I’m covered in sweat.
Ok I only spent 30 minutes getting ready. BUT STILL.
Why did I wear a dress with no back? I bet you can see the little droplets of sweat…
1 block til the subway. I should have brought extra deodorant. No wonder I’m single.
Let me scroll through screen shots of his profile to brush up on conversation topics.
OMG I have nothing in common with this guy.
Should I text my friends for after-crash-and-burn-date-plans?
Hopefully we order drinks ASAP.
Thank goodness for those 3 glasses of wine I had while getting ready.
Maybe that’s why I’m so hot. Nvm I’m hot because it’s JUNE. I don’t date in June. This is against my cardinal rules.
I wonder if he online-stalked me. Good thing I’ve got my privacy settings on LOCK.
Obvi I online-stalked him. He doesn’t even have a Facebook. This is going to be bad. Really bad.
Did I remember to tell him I wasn’t a law student? OY VEY.
Oh well, here goes nothing. At the very least, it will make for some great Facebook statuses.
And the rest is history! Happy Anniversary to my best friend with the emoji face (see below for some punny photos). He told me he is weeks behind on my blog, even though I only post 1-2 times a week! Maybe he will see this by the end of Year #3. I’m glad I didn’t stand you up, I’m glad I double-messaged you my name, I’m glad you still met up with me even after learning I quit the practice of law (turns out I did tell him), and I’m glad you sat through an entire dinner with me without mentioning how sweaty I was when I showed up. xoxo
He makes me laugh. It must be his SUNNY demeanor. See what I did there?
I SPY some professional wedding guests!!
Sometimes we travel. He’s my knight in shining armor.
