New to this city, not new to this, and starting from nothing

I moved here in January for a job I could not turn down, leaving behind a city where I knew everybody and a nine year reputation that meant I never had to explain myself. Here I am nobody, and it has been a stranger experience than I expected.

Thirty four, Manhattan, in a building where I do not know a single neighbour's name. Nine years leading before I arrived, one arrangement of five years that ended when I took this post, amicably, and he still writes.

The odd part is being unable to be vouched for. At home somebody would say my name and that was the whole of the vetting. Here I am a woman on a board making claims about herself, exactly like everybody else, and I have found that a humbling and useful thing to experience from this side after years of asking men to prove themselves.

What I want is a long arrangement, domestic in shape, with somebody who lives close enough to be part of a normal week. Duties, standing rules, service that is practical. I have very little free time and a great deal of order, and the two go together.

What I do not want is to be somebody's introduction to the city, to be asked to explain how it is done where I am from, or to be approached as though a woman new in town is easier to impress. And there is nothing about my life that is for hire, which I have now had to say more times in seven months here than in nine years there.