I Left NYC to Find a Husband in the Midwest. The Plan Backfired.
In 2010 I quit a job in a dramatic way, having reached the threshold of how much bullshit I could accept from the tedious, entry-level positions that a bachelor’s degree in psychology afforded. It was one of many case management positions I held in New York that sent me to dangerous neighborhoods to engage with high-risk clients, yet paid me so little I was often making the choice between toilet paper or groceries.
I began researching graduate school as a way out of the employment plateau, and though no universities in New York offered the program I was interested in, I found three outside of the city that did: Washington State, The University of Illinois at Chicago, or Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio.
“Ohio,” my best friend chuckled, “what even is Ohio?”
I was accepted into all three programs, and chose The University of IL because Chicago was the only place I could get by on public transportation — I had a license but didn’t drive at the time, so Seattle and Cleveland were out.
I was relieved. New Yorkers did not just go to the Midwest, they visited begrudgingly, complaining and rolling their eyes the whole time at the chain restaurants and strip malls. There were only two reasons one left the cultural mecca of New York City to visit a place…
