Hilarie Burton moved to New York at 19, landed a job at MTV, and achieved her early dreams. But the pressure crushed her, and witnessing 9/11 left lasting trauma. When she returned to her Virginia hometown, she barely recognized it, and neither could she recognize herself.
When does this come into your life? I'd been in New York for a year. 18, 19? 19. I loved it. I had already gotten this job at MTV. Literally everything I set out to do happened within the first month of coming to New York. And sometimes when you get what you wished for but you didn't think about all the other steps around it or after it, it can be incredibly overwhelming. Post-September 11th, I think I probably still carry some PTSD from that. I was just so young. And that it really rattled me, kind of that reckoning of, oh, the safety and the magic of New York City has been shaken for me. And also my home is just being developed so rapidly that every time I go back to Virginia, I don't recognize where I am anymore. Like I'm getting lost in my own hometown. I felt unmoored.
