Isabella is 35 and moved to New York from Los Angeles. She lives at SharedEasy’s Bushwick location in Brooklyn.
I had been to New York three times as a tourist. Every time I left, I told myself I’d come back to live. Then life kept going and the plan kept waiting.
The fear was not one big thing. It was a hundred small ones stacked up. I spent a year and a half telling myself it wasn’t the right time, that I needed to plan more, that I wasn’t ready. Then I stopped, packed my things, put everything in storage in Los Angeles, and booked a one-way flight.
I’m 35. I want to say that for anyone reading this who keeps waiting for the right moment: there isn’t one. You just go.
What I Was Looking For
When you leave everything in storage and move to a new city, you need a place that meets you halfway.
My previous apartment in Los Angeles had been expensive. Utilities on top of rent, maintenance requests that took weeks, bills that varied every month. When I was looking for somewhere to land in New York, I had one clear requirement: I did not want to piece it together myself. Furniture, Wi-Fi, laundry, utilities, I needed all of that included from day one. I needed to walk in with my luggage and have a home waiting.
SharedEasy does exactly that. Furnished room, utilities included, in-unit washer and dryer, dishwasher, Wi-Fi. You move in and you start living. No IKEA run. No chasing the electric company. No first-month chaos.
The washing machine alone changed things for me. Four years of carrying clothes down to a laundry room, waiting an hour for a wash cycle, waiting another hour to dry, running back before someone stacked my things on a ledge. Having laundry inside the apartment felt like an upgrade I didn’t know I was allowed to have.
What I Thought Shared Housing Would Be Like
I had stayed in hostels before. When I imagined co-living, I went straight to that picture: crowded, loud, never a quiet moment.
Bushwick was the opposite. The apartment is clean. Consistently clean. And there is a weekly cleaning included, which I did not know about until I arrived. That was the first surprise, and a good one. A place that is already tidy, with someone coming every week to keep it that way.
My roommates are polite. The kitchen is always available when I need it. I cook when I want, I have the space to myself when I want, and if someone is around, we talk. It is that simple.
There is a version of co-living people fear, where you lose all your privacy and your routine gets disrupted by whoever else is in the space. That is not what I found. You have your room, you have your routine, and the common areas are there when you want them.
Bushwick
I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Before I came, I didn’t know much about it.
Now I would recommend it to anyone arriving in New York for the first time. The neighborhood is diverse in a real way. You can find food from almost every country within a few blocks. Good food, cheap food. Coffee shops everywhere. Thrift stores, including one of the biggest ones in the city, right there in the neighborhood. I found some of the best pieces in my wardrobe in Bushwick for almost nothing.
The L train is the other thing. It connects directly to Manhattan, and once you figure out the subway, the whole city opens up. The first time I took it the system felt overwhelming. By the third week it was just part of my morning.
SoHo, and What It Means to Walk Like You Live Here
I love SoHo. The energy, the fashion, the streets.
But the best part of SoHo is where it puts you. Walk five minutes in one direction and you’re in Chinatown. Another five and you’re in Little Italy. In ten minutes from the same starting point, you pass through three completely different worlds.
That is the thing about New York that no travel guide quite captures. As a tourist, you are always rushing between things. You have a list, you have a clock, you are managing time.
As a resident, the city is just there. On a Wednesday afternoon I can walk from SoHo to Chinatown with nowhere to be. Central Park in the morning, not because it’s on an itinerary, but because I felt like it. That shift from visitor to resident is not subtle. It changes how the city feels entirely.
On Making Friends Here
People in New York are busy. That is true. But they are not unfriendly.
I made friends at the gym, at events, in conversations that started casually and went somewhere. The city has more infrastructure for meeting people than anywhere I have lived before. Run clubs, fitness classes, neighborhood events, you find your entry point and go from there. When you are open to it, people receive it well.
The SharedEasy home helped with that too. When you arrive somewhere alone and the people around you are easy to talk to, it smooths the start of everything.
What I Would Tell You
Be courageous. That is the simplest way I can put it.
I was afraid. I spent a year and a half finding reasons to wait. I came anyway, and the city gave me more than I expected. New York teaches you things about yourself that you can only learn by being here. How to be independent. How to find your way. How to feel at home in a place that never stops moving.
I am 35. I could have come younger. But 35 is also the right time. There is no wrong time. You are not too old. You are not too late.
If you are thinking about it, come.
Isabella lives at SharedEasy’s Bushwick location in Brooklyn. SharedEasy offers fully furnished private rooms in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, with all-inclusive pricing, utilities included, in-unit laundry, weekly cleaning, no broker fees, no SSN required, and flexible leases starting at 30 days. View available rooms at sharedeasy.club
