Four years ago, Michelle walked toward me on a street in our neighbourhood in Miami. She was a friend of a friend who was joining my friend Phoebe and me for an event.
Michelle complimented my skirt. One I had ordered specifically for the occasion. Then and there, our friendship began.
She invited me to a potluck, a night out, and we went to a taco night. Always, with a camera in her hand, hoping to build her career as a photographer. At the end of 2022, she took photos of me in her downtown Miami apartment.
We’ve spoken on occasion since then. I twice visited a psychic at her recommendation. Now, in New York, two and a half years later, we reconnected.
Michelle transitioned to working full-time as a photographer. She’s been featured in Vogue and Forbes, and as a result of our West Village shoot, on my business website.
To fully catch up, we sat on a bench outside an ice cream shop.
“What’s the best part about living in New York?” I ask her about her move.
“If I didn’t have to make money, I would move back to Miami in a heartbeat,” she says. “I prefer Miami for the weather and the vibes. New York is a little crazy, and the weather isn’t great.
But the best part is that it’s really good for my business. And there are so many people to meet. So many people to work with. And so many opportunities. So it’s worth it to live here. I’m still learning to love the lifestyle. It’s hard to compare to Miami.”
I forgot, for a moment, when we began chatting, that Michelle is actually a New York native, having grown up on Long Island—just 35 minutes from the city on the express train.
“Do you feel like you have a supportive community here?” I ask.
“Yeah, for sure. I will say my biggest support system is my boyfriend who I live with. But I also have a lot of my close friends and cousins here. I never really feel alone. And I feel like a lot of people do feel alone in the city, so I’m lucky that I have that because I probably wouldn’t live here if I didn’t,” says Michelle.
“I also think it is a great city to make new friends, because everyone is really open,” she makes sure to add.
“Same boyfriend. New Job. At what point did you decide to take photography full-time?” I reply after.
“Four months ago. In March, I went full-time. It got to the point where I was working two jobs at once, and it was really overwhelming. And I was making a little bit more doing this than I was at the other job, so it just made sense to quit that job and pursue this full-time. It’s been really great and I’ve been able to support myself off of it, which is awesome,” says Michelle.
She explains that most of the new friends she makes are through work because of her busier schedule. Fellow photographers. Something I can relate to as an entrepreneur.
“Do you ever get overwhelmed by your work or feel imposter syndrome?” I ask.
“Every time I shoot, I have a little bit of imposter syndrome. I try to get out of my head and into my body and shift into the creative parts of my brain. I do have enough experience at this point to trust that I’ll get the job done, and I’ve never had an unhappy client, so I have to focus on the facts.
A lot of the time, I’m doing something for the first time, whether it’s a different location, space or people. So there is always a little bit of newness that I have my ways to cope with,” Michelle clarifies.
I clearly remember a conversation we had in January 2022 in my apartment in Miami. Over tea, I shared my Julia Roberts theory on dating. The idea that some women don’t necessarily need an equal in a relationship, but someone who will let them shine (i.e. the reason Roberts’ first marriage is often cited as not working—competing and uncomplementary leads).
“What do you think made your long-distance relationship work?” I ask Michelle. For the early years of her romance, she lived in Miami, and her boyfriend lived in Philadelphia.
“A lot of patience. Trust that we were going to figure it out together, even though we didn’t know how—communicating what I wanted because it came down to a certain time when I shared that we needed to be in the same city for it to work. So having boundaries,” she says. “But also having patience.”
“I focused on the positive of having my own time at such a young age. I think if I were older, I would have had less patience, but I was 22, 23, 24. Honestly, I regret the times that I was upset he wasn’t there because, in hindsight, I could have had good times. We always planned our next visits and never spent more than two weeks apart.”
Michelle and I walk toward the same subway stop at the end of our hangout. I’m going uptown, closer to the Gemological Institute, and she’s going downtown.
We acknowledge that a friendship, especially one in its early days, relies heavily on being geographically close to someone. And that maybe if we had both lived in the same place at the same time, we would be close friends.