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Hooray! The anniversary of losing my dream job!
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Hooray! The anniversary of losing my dream job!

my life was flipped upside down, thank goodness

Chloe Cullen's avatar
Chloe Cullen
Aug 20, 2024
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Hooray! The anniversary of losing my dream job!
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A sunset picture of the Brooklyn Bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn
photo courtesy of Luke Pinto

In November of 2022, I stared out the train windows on the F line. The train rounded out of Manhattan tunnels onto the bridge. A dimming autumn sunset filled the train, if a navy night hadn’t already coated the city. I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge, a cartoonish illustration of New York City against thin clouds and tiny dots of light.

This life couldn’t be real.

Somehow, I landed in a successful game of M.A.S.H.:

  • city: New York, baby!!

  • apartment—but a good neighborhood, a lofted bedroom! no doors, sure, but high ceilings, yellow cabinets, countertops with confusing height changes!

  • husband: Though ten-year-old Chloe who started her first journal entry with the sentence “I will marry Jesse McCartney” would be disappointed to know Jesse and I never crossed paths, she would be happy to know—or panicked, because she believed moving in with someone before marriage guaranteed an eventual divorce—that I recently moved in with my boyfriend of 5 years. A guy who ran …

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