I had acquired a Ph.D. in literature with dreams of a steady paycheck, the shelter of tenure and a solid Victorian house on the edge of campus. I would marry a fellow professor, bear two handsome children and fall into the predictable rhythms of the school year. I looked forward to a life undisturbed by risk, rebellion or blinding passion. But I could find no teaching job.

When I was 18, New York City was the one that got away. Visiting it for the first time, I knew I wanted to live here. It was a true thing that I knew with the clarity of all true things. To live in New York was to travel the world while standing still.

As I walked through Union Square, a kaleidoscope of humanity tumbled around me: a woman walking six dogs, a man holding a steering wheel as if he were driving an invisible car, a group of muscular break dancers performing circus feats. My body was a collection of Walt Whitman’s moving particles, mixing with moving particles — no end to me and no beginning to anyone else. It was a sensual siren song to my soul.

The specifics of my dream were an unthinkable, embarrassing cliché: I wanted to be on stage. I wanted to express raw emotion in front of hundreds of people. I scoured the pages of Backstage furtively, as if it were a pornographic pamphlet from the 18th century, but I never vocalized my desire. I gave up on the thing I most wanted without even really trying.

I went on to inhabit the straitjacket of a “good girl,” doing all the things that were expected of me: good grades, graduate school, a sensible career path and, most of all, decorum. And yet, the straight and narrow had led to a dead end: joblessness and debt. With each rejection letter I received during my academic job search, I felt a rising tide of relief. Now I can do as I please, I thought. Now I can move to New York.