This week marks one year since I had one of the best trips in my life, NYFW SS16.

I don’t know if there is even a way to capture the perfection that was that week on paper (on computer rather); how it changed my life and the way I looked at the world. NYFW SS16 came at a time where the stress of work and living in LA had really started to get to me. I know it sounds ridiculous, LA with it’s perfect weather and a pace much slower than that of NYC. Not to go into too much detail, but my work life at that moment of my life was not so good (or at all healthy) and the stress had bled into all the other areas of my life. It is funny how you can be so consumed with something that you have no idea how bad things really are until you are out of it and look back. On top of that, the dinners with friends talking about “the industry” had started eating at me. I didn’t know where I wanted to go with my life anymore. Did I want to write for TV? Did I even want anything to do with this “Industry”? Having always been a “people person” I now wanted a life where I never had to interact with another single person. Whether it be co-workers, bosses or clients, I wanted to be alone, even just for a week. I needed a break. Mainly because I was dealing with a multitude of people who thought we were curing cancer. People throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars around but arguing about dimes. Or that felt we were brain surgeons and that meant shutting off your phone at 10pm was not an option. Finally there was that one producer/client who sent me aggressive text messages at 4.30am in the morning. That was the moment that sent me to the edge, I suddenly wanted nothing to do with television or film. Even though I had known from the age of 15 that it was all I wanted to do with my life.

So I picked up my bags and decided to go to NYFW. Okay, it wasn’t that last minute. I am a planner and I could never book a trip like that on a whim. I decided a month out but that was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. I think that more than anything, I was approaching the 7 year itch. Los Angeles and I had almost been married a whole 7 years and I started to get antsy. I had moved here as a naïve and giddy 22 year old who just wanted to be a part of the action, any action. But after years of the grind, I started to long for parks, parks with real grass that you could just walk to and read a book. I missed buildings, not a measly few sky scrapers but being in a real city with buildings everywhere you looked. I missed ferries and the harbors. I missed just walking places and not worrying how you were going to get to brunch and where you were going to park. And mostly I missed intelligent conversations about politics and the world and basically anything unrelated to managers, agents, pilots and people pitching their ideas.

So off I went on a red eye to NYC and it was everything I had hoped for. I had been to NYC many times before, but every time I go I just fall more and more in love. With the city, fashion week, the people, the food, the street art, the coffee, the walking, the parks. I made friends with people in Ubers and got invited to festivals. I made friends at fashion shows and in bars. People seemed to want to talk to me and it wasn’t for show, which I know seems ironic because it is fashion week (which people tend to deem a shallow industry). NYC provided a different vibe and it was exactly what I needed.

Without that distance, I am not sure if LA and I would still be together. In fact, at dinner with a friend eating (delicious) tacos in the East Village that week, I decided that I was going to move to NY. It had always been a dream of mine and I decided I would do whatever it took to make it happen. I am not sure how I thought I would make it happen logistically seeing I was still struggling with money in LA. All I knew was, I needed a change even if it meant heading back to Sydney. I decided I needed to either figure out a way to work for myself or find a new job. Otherwise, I was done with LA for a bit.

I gave myself until June 2016 to find a new job and even wrote out a list of everything I wanted from the new job that I hadn’t been getting from the last one. You know things like fair (and equal) pay, the ability to laugh in the workplace and the occasional lunch break without feeling guilty or like you would never be able to catch up. And then on June 1st, 2016 everything I wrote on that list came true. In fact, I forgot I had written any of this out at all. I found the list a month into the new job and couldn’t believe everything I had put out into the universe happened.

So now one year later, the plan was to head to NYC again for fashion week. But with a new (and awesome) job, just getting back from a trip to San Francisco and then pet/house sitting for a few weeks since, with a heavy heart and a few tears I decided that the timing was not right. Obviously, it was a tough decision and I would give anything to relive that magical week of fashion shows, walks down the high line, reading a book and eating lunch in Central Park. But at the end of the day, I don’t need New York to turn things around for me this year. It would be a great addition to my life, but I am not in need of any soul searching nor am I in need of a catalyst to kick my ass into gear. I am 100% happy with where I am in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel a kick to the gut as I watch the many Instagram posts at Pier 59 and Skylight at Moynihan Station. I reminisce on the excitement of when the lights went down and the first look stepped onto the runway. However, the great thing about fashion is that it is ever-changing. There will be another season with it’s new colors, patterns and textures. I am content with sitting this one out, but you can count on that I will be definitely be stalking from afar.

Bring it, NYFW.

(Drink Bottle: Lorna Jane)