What The Hell Am I Supposed to Be Doing Right Now? Twenty-Two, Broke And Figuring It Out In New York City.

By: Hayleigh Tramm February 5th 2025

Six months postgrad, and I can say the daunting reality of freedom and independence has started to feel overwhelming. Some days, I lay in bed until noon, get high immediately, then spend hours watching Shameless and scrolling on TikTok. Other days, I wake up with the same pressure to write as a New York Times columnist and crush myself with the weight of my ambition.

I moved to New York City from Washington State at 22 years old, completely alone. I found a shitty job—just enough to keep my parents from having a heart attack. I sold my car, half my closet, and packed four suitcases before moving into a bedroom I found online with two women whose names I did not know.

I planned my move down to the last detail—everything except what I’d actually do once I got here. Now, it's starting to look like moving here may have been the easy part.

That’s not to say I didn’t cry through the entire goodbye, the car ride to the airport, the flight itself, and every night in my bed for two weeks. They say your first year in New York is the hardest. I find comfort in knowing that every day I learn and explore, things get better.

"The great scattering," as Mel Robbins calls it, is the phase of your early 20s when everyone starts going in different directions. Two months after graduating from Western Washington University, I decided it was my time to scatter. I chose New York because I'm bold, an ambitious fighter—someone with enough guts to actually do it.

Why? My formal, adult answer to this question has always been, “I want to be a writer.” Although, I’m not so sure I do—because, in truth, I haven’t really written anything. I assume my ambition will carry me, but in reality, I have no idea how to get there.

Writing feels natural to me because I process the world in a way that’s uniquely mine. I’ve always been drawn to storytelling, but I never fully trusted my own ideas—I think I want to be a writer but i'm not even sure what that means.

I might not know who I am just yet, but I know a few things that I’m not, and that counts for something. My goal is to make as many mistakes as possible. And in order to make mistakes, I need to start doing things. That means writing the blog I keep putting off.

I’m patient, and I trust in my own timeline. But I’m also really sick of introducing myself as a Hostess, and maybe if I actually wrote something, I’d have the balls to say, "I’m a writer."

So, here’s to the guy at Bleecker Street Bar last weekend—my last straw.

"I’m a writer," I said for the first time ever.

"Well, what have you written?" he hit me back with.

No answer. Fuck. Never again.

Because the next time someone asks me what I’ve written, I want to have an answer.

No money, No plan, just vibes—Welcome to 22 in NYC. A space for the real, unfiltered version of figuring it out. The messy truths no one warns you about. The things to try, the people to meet, the risks to take. Maybe I won’t get it right. Maybe that’s the point.

Either way, I’m writing. Finally.