Staying connected with the people who trusted me first
By Liesa Witt · Published · Updated
A birthday lunch in New York was a good reminder that relationships are about the quality of time spent together, not the quantity.
The first person who trusted me when I moved to New York came back to the city for her birthday. She does not live in New York anymore, but she gathered family and friends to have lunch together.
I sat at that table thinking about how differently the last few years would have gone without her.
The people who help us start
She is the person who trusted me with her apartment. In doing so she helped me start my life here in New York City. Being around her again was a good reminder of how much those early acts of trust matter when you are building a life somewhere new.
It is easy to forget how little you have to offer when you first arrive. No credit history. No rental record in this country. No local reference anyone can call. On paper you are not a person yet, you are a set of missing fields. Every system you meet is designed to check a past you do not have here.
So someone has to decide, without much evidence, that you are worth the risk. Not because the file convinced them. Because they looked at you and made a call.
That is what an early act of trust really is. Someone absorbs the uncertainty you cannot resolve on your own, and holds it until you are able to hold it yourself.
Nobody starts alone
There is a story we tell about moving abroad that leaves those people out. It is the story of the brave individual with the suitcase and the plan, figuring it out through sheer determination. I have told a version of it myself.
But almost every part of my life here traces back to somebody who did not have to help and did it anyway. The apartment. The introduction. The person who explained how something actually works instead of how it is supposed to work.
The plan matters far less than we pretend. What matters is whether anybody opens a door.
It is about the quality of time spent, not the quantity. It is easy to let time slip by, especially when people move away. But making time to stay in touch with kind, caring people is always worth it.
What I try to do with it now
You cannot repay the person who let you start. That is not how any of it works. What you can do is keep the thing moving and show the same amount of kindness and trust to others.
Most people have no idea what their small decision made possible.
I like to encourage you to also be the door for someone else. Someone is three months behind you on the same move, looking as unqualified on paper as you once did. You now know things that are worth more to them than advice, because you know what is actually true. Protect the relationships that do not require maintenance. The ones that survive distance are usually the ones worth showing up for when there is an occasion. A birthday lunch across a few time zones is not a small thing.
The part that stays
Distance changes what a friendship can be. It does not have to end it. She does not live here anymore, and the version of me that needed her apartment is long gone, and yet a table on a Saturday afternoon put us back exactly where we were.
That is the thing about the people who help you start. They are not just part of how you got here. They are part of what you are still building.