Moving out of New York City
1 Year Later
1 Year ago I shipped two boxes, two tightly packed suitcases, with one carry-on, and a backpack far too heavy for me to tolerate long-distance travel. My hoodie soaking the streams of sweat on my back underneath the overweight luggage my sister and I dragged 10 blocks through Times Square, back and forth across two Penn Stations, and two trains just for me to quite literally be running to make my flight back home to Los Angeles.
I wasn’t fully prepared for the tears that would fall when my sister got as far as she could and let out a pause before her eyes welled up and I in response fought to level my breath so as not to cry at the sight of her sadness. But it was too late.
The travel anxiety of making this flight washed away for a brief moment and we were left to compose ourselves, if only for a minute, to stand present in the reality that was the end of our chapter together.
And it was all too overwhelming.
When we said our goodbyes I thought I was processing the weight of my actions, but no.
They say never look back,
but I did.
It was the moment when the plane was taking off, and I turned out the window to see the city. Jersey has a priceless view of the city. It was perfect.
And what I was leaving was starting to become perfect
and that’s when it hit me.
Huge drops of silent tears poured down my face.
I cried for 40 minutes
until my head hurt
and my tear ducts finally had no more left to give.
The life I was building was just starting to come together, but I didn’t see it, I didn’t wait, I wasn’t patient with myself, I wasn’t trying hard enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel,
and I made the decision to leave.
I’ve never cried so hard in public in my life.
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So much can change in one year
and I feel like I have felt every single day of the last year.
In one year you can go from walking 7 miles a day
to struggling to find the time to fit in just 1
From a new part of your body in pain from working laboriously
to sitting for 10 hours a day
From seeing life and people and their trash and laughter and dogs and smells envelope you
to seeing no one
From being surrounded by your friends every day
to hoping you see them more than twice a month
From living under the luxury of your sister's roof
to the roof of your parent
From barely scraping by on paycheck to paycheck
to working over 55 hour work weeks
with the same amount of pay
-
I bought a one-way ticket to New York City, lived there for 1.5 years, and then moved back to LA. Not once did I visit home during my entire stay. Yet I was never more homesick than when I was in the city.
For the first 6 months of living at home, all I could think about was moving back.
It wasn’t just a want but a need.
Every day was a day that brought me closer to my friends, the beating heart of the city, stretching my legs and frankly touching grass.
My bedroom felt like a prison cell, my grandfather had died, I was unemployed and I couldn’t afford to go anywhere.
What about the last 6 months?
I have a job that makes me miserable, where I am underemployed and overworked, where my only friend is on a computer screen and the other occasionally in the office that I’m never in which leaves me alone most weeks, trapped with my thoughts, suppressed anger and on the precipice of becoming unhinged if you don’t use your next few words to micromanage me from wisely. I only go where I can afford or driving anxiety will allow me, I don’t laugh as much when I’m with my friends, I have a failing hobby, my need to be touched grows by the day, missed all five of my friends birthdays and I wasn’t able to experience a real fall.
What have we learned?
I remember before I left to make this decision I was telling my friend how I was just starting to get comfortable in my own city. I was starting to travel around more and explore more than just 10 miles out. How I loved the weather and the beauty this state had to offer.
And so many of those things are still true.
But the energy, the opportunities, the community, the diversity, the accessibility,
there’s no better place that has that than New York City
and it opened my realization of not only what I want, but what I still need in a place where I live.
That’s not to say other cities don’t have that but just as I didn’t think there would be untapped potential in the city before I moved, there was, and now I can’t unsee that, unlive that, not experience that.
When you can walk a street and peek into the entrances of bars that are spilling out with crowds and laughter filling the streets with musicians getting people to dance and waltzing into free events, you see how alive it is. You have a wider perception of how vast the world is and how our lives are tiny but intertwined, wedged into train cars and sprawled out on the great lawns and a foot apart with two plates of pasta on the sidewalk. And when you’re a person who finds absolute joy people watching in Central Park between 70th and 72nd
its hard to go back to where you were.
I am still learning that you can be depressed anywhere, it's a matter of what you can do within yourself to change…well as much as you can. If you really don’t like the cold you should probably get outta there.
I’m learning how much I need to be patient with myself and my journey
What happens now?
I was offered twice to move back
I declined twice
I cried on the first one, numb on the second.
Making that decision wasn’t easy, despite everything you’ve heard me say
But I also said I need to be patient with myself, see what else is out there, take some time,
and as long as I am still employed I can’t afford to leave.
This year has not been easy
I can’t tell you if I made the “right” decision because there is no right or wrong, it simply is
and what I have learned from it
And to simply continue to move forward.
Forward can be moving back to New York one of these days if there is a better moment again.
But for now, we are here, with all the love and loss and moments of reflection that I can possibly have.
I’m glad I took the leap of faith.
