Some people graduate from college and set out on a new adventure. Not me. After throwing my cap in the air I went back to the same house I’d lived in for the past year with the same three roommates. I had gotten a job at the university, mostly because I wasn’t sure what else to do. I was paralyzed, really, and Ames is a college town. There are those who stick around forever. It’s not a bad place to live, and after four years it was familiar.

My parents were happy with my decision. Staying in Ames meant I’d still be an hour from home. My mom always talked about our neighbor’s son, the one who worked in Boston – he only came home once a year, for Christmas. So for two years after graduation my life was eerily similar to the life I’d led as an undergrad. I walked the same streets, hung out with the same people. I wasn’t unhappy, but when I thought about it I realized I wasn’t happy, either.

One day I got an email from a former classmate. We weren’t close, but we had some friends in common. She’d sent the message to everyone in her address book: her roommate was moving out. Did anyone know anyone who needed a place to live in New York City?

I should have just deleted that email. I had never even visited New York. I had watched the news on 9/11, like everyone else, but I knew nothing about the city – nothing more than what you see in movies. It was very abstract and far away. And somehow, this made it seem perfect.

I wrote back to Rebecca. I don’t know what possessed me. I didn’t have a job lined up. I didn’t have a plan. She didn’t mind; I figured plenty of people move to New York without a plan. I figured I’d figure it out. She assured me the room was cheap by New York standards, though it cost double what I was paying in Iowa.

The next week passed in a blur. I found someone to take my room in Ames. I gave notice at my job (when my supervisor asked why I was leaving, I wasn’t sure what to say). I called my parents – my dad tried to reason with me and my mom burst into tears. I emailed dozens of resumes and was completely shocked when I got a reply from a nonprofit organization that needed an assistant. I set up an interview for two days after my arrival date in the city.

It’s weird: I don’t really remember my first forty-eight hours in New York. I know my brother, who’d driven the U-Haul with me, helped carry everything upstairs to my tiny new room with a view of a fire escape. I remember crying when I said goodbye to him the next morning, and I remember Rebecca heading off to work and leaving me a subway map. I was shellshocked, homesick, and terrified. Then when my interview at the nonprofit went well I was walking on air. The job seemed okay, and I’d have just enough to pay my bills. Yes! I was gonna make it after all!

Rebecca was too busy to spend much time with me, so I did my exploring alone. For my first month of work I left the apartment thirty minutes early, just in case I got lost. I did a lot of dumb gawking at things real New Yorkers wouldn’t even notice, and I spent many nights crying in my room.

But I survived. I began venturing out more, even though I was on my own. Rebecca worked at a PR company and she was always there late; we kept making plans to hang out, but somehow it never happened. I had a notion that some of the cool girls and hot boys lounging at the bars would spot me and strike up a conversation, but that never happened either. I realized how alone you can be in a big city.

My closest friend was Katya, who also worked at the nonprofit. She was a recent NYU grad and she had great taste in music. We ate lunch and talked about what we were listening to, and after a while we began seeing shows together. Her favorite band was the Strokes. I didn’t have an mp3 player then, so Katya burned Is This It on a CD for me. I began listening to it every day – on the way to work, on the way home, on the weekends when I spent hours walking. It was a perfect soundtrack for a vast, dark, disorienting, exhilarating city. It was my New York record.

And eventually I settled into New York routines. Katya introduced me to her friends. I felt underdressed around them, but they seemed nice, and I tagged along to their parties. I stopped carrying a street map in my bag, and one night I went to a salon and got my long hair chopped off. It cost $100. I nearly fainted, but somehow it seemed like a final touch.

Then one night, eleven months into my stay, Rebecca and I got a notice – the landlord had sold our building. We had one month to move. I assumed we’d find a new place together, but Rebecca broke more bad news. She wanted a studio by herself. “Nothing personal,” she said. “I’m just tired of having roommates.”

She could afford to live alone. I couldn’t. I began a frantic search, emailing everyone I knew for leads. Finally I found a room with a friend of a friend of one of Katya’s friends. I thought that was a close enough connection. I was wrong.

My new roommate - I’ll call her Jessie - was a disaster. A trust-funded, coke-addicted, “gallery assistant” mess. She stumbled in at four in the morning, usually with a posse of noisy friends who wanted to watch TV. Didn’t they have to get up for work in the morning? Guess not. They thought I was a loser. I thought they were jerks. To top it all off, the building had mice and the guy upstairs was learning to play the trumpet.

As they say, good things happen in threes. Soon after my move Katya told me she was applying to grad school… in California. When she got her acceptance letter I pretended to be excited, but I was devastated. My closest friend, leaving me. A crappy living situation. A boring job that barely paid enough. Why was I here again?

One of Katya’s friends organized a farewell party at a bar near my old apartment. In a drunken haze I looked around the room, wondering if any of these people would bother calling me after Katya left. Of course, they didn’t. They only knew me as her quiet little friend from her day job. With Katya gone there were no more parties, no more group outings to see a band. I ran into one of her friends on the street and it took him a minute to remember my name. Later that week, one of the women at work tried to talk me into signing up for a dating website. “It’s the only way left to meet people in this city,” she said.

I fell into the deepest depression I’ve ever known. New York had lost its charm; it was nothing but a mean, dirty, crowded chunk of land. I found myself sobbing on the subway each morning. I didn’t want to go out, but I didn’t want to be home in case Jessie was around. I missed my family. I was almost 25 and I just wanted to go home.

If life were really like the movies, I’d have pulled myself together and landed the job of my dreams, or met the guy of my dreams, or both. It didn’t work that way. I stayed in New York for a second year, and then I had to admit I’d had enough. I was tired of living in a mouse-infested, overpriced box. I had sent applications to other jobs and got no responses. My savings were gone. The city that had seemed like a beacon of hope was feeling like a dead end. I didn’t want to be a quitter, but I didn’t want to stay. Two years after the adventure began it ended. I packed my things and moved back to Iowa.

Even though I’ve since moved again, to Chicago, I can’t listen to Is This It any more. I’m not sure if that’s because it reminds me of the cold, lonely disappointment New York turned out to be, or if it’s because I still wonder what might have happened if I’d stayed. I think it may be a bit of both.