New York I love you, but you're bringing me down.

I haven’t written in weeks. Life happens and New York happens seemingly so quickly, that you’re too busy living it to bother writing about it. And besides, I’ve just gone through one of the most insane, crazy, time-consuming, and stress-inducing things any New Yorker can ever go through – the painfully long and tedious dance of looking for a new apartment.

In today’s market people keep saying things out there are a steal, “Everything is so cheap now!” and “This is the time to make the move!” Firstly, no matter how bad this economy is, diving full speed ahead into the bottom of a cesspool of record high unemployment rates and bankruptcy, nothing in New York, especially apartments, should ever be classified as “cheap.” Secondly, making the move, as it were, is filled with so much more than just finding a place, packing up your stuff and moving to another neighborhood. Looking for an apartment in New York is a full-time job. It’s long hours and takes determination, stamina and the creative ability to look at even the bleakest of places and be able to envision something more.

Having lived with roommates for what now feels like my entire life, I decided it was time, four scary years away from turning thirty, that perhaps it was in fact the pivotal moment to make the leap. Sure, anywhere else in the country having your own place isn’t a big deal. There are people I know all over the place from San Francisco to Madison, Wisconsin who live in entirely palatial places for half the cost of what a closet in New York would bank you - which is why in New York it’s entirely normal for you to be rounding thirty, even say, thirty-five and still have roommates. It’s costly to live here of course, and I’ve seen relationships speed up from casual dates to full blown engagements just because splitting the rent on that one-bedroom is going to save them enough money that making a life-time commitment is entirely worth it.

But as the ever-single New Yorker that I am, I started gallivanting across the island, Murray Hill, Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea, the East Village – all in an attempt to find a studio where I might fit in (and be able to fit my stuff). I’ve spent the last three and a half years on the Upper East Side with people with strollers, and old people with canes, girls my age who flaunt designer handbags and clothes a la Gossip Girl, and guys who look as though they just stumbled out of their college frat house. I’m a little behind in getting the memo I guess, but Change (surprise!) is what it’s all about these days, so I decided life’s too short not to get on board.

I saw apartments that might be able to fit a chair and a twin bed (it would be pushing it), with no windows, one small burner and the overwhelming smell of bleach costing more than one paycheck. I saw basements with bugs, and five-floor walk-ups with no bathroom sinks. I saw lofted beds and partition walls and entire apartments newly created in what used to be an actual hallway now converted into small (I could extend my arms and touch both walls) living spaces which I was supposed to pay for but would only really be good for someone with an extreme case of agoraphobia.

I was taking meetings whenever people could meet me, morning, noon and night, because like anything in New York, things happen fast, and with one delay you could lose the (small) place of your dreams in a New York minute. I was taking trains and buses and walking in the rain, and calling brokers and landlords and checking Craigslist religiously every thirty minutes for updates of places in my low price-range. I was starting to lose my mind. I was getting discouraged. I was becoming sacred that I might get fired after three days of being so apartment obsessed that I wasn’t getting any work done. New York! What the hell?! Why do you have to be so expensive!? Why do you have to be so difficult!?

As luck would have it (though I don’t believe much in luck) I stumbled across a place I initially wasn’t going to bother seeing. The Upper West side seemed far after having spent so much time taking the train downtown from the East (but I’d quickly come to the painful realization that I couldn’t afford downtown. New York, I hate you!). I dragged myself up to take a look anyway. There’s something to be said about that cliché that happens to you when you find something that’s meant to be, be it a job, love or an apartment – when you know, you just know, and it happens when you least expect it.

The search was over. The paperwork was assembled, the appropriate funds (broker fees, don’t even get me started…) were obtained and dropped off, and suddenly I found myself signing the lease to my first solo apartment. Sans roommates, sans drama. Sure, I’m paying more now for just a room with a kitchen in it, but it has windows and a fireplace and so much character that it’s entirely worth the impending upcoming nights when all I’ll be able to afford to do is sit in my new place, alone, and learn all over again why New York really is the greatest city in the world.