Keep the lights on.

Almost 14 years ago, I packed what little belongings I had and moved to Brooklyn. I had $700 to my name and a cheap flight booked, with two suitcases and little Miku at the ready for our new life in the big city. At 22 years old, I had a lot more moxie — or maybe I just had enough of my same old mundane existence and perpetual misery. I was too young to feel so old, too bright and full of promise to feel so hopeless…and of course, at that time I was convinced my life would end at 25. The clock was ticking, so I took a leap of faith: I left all that was familiar and traded it for an 8×9 room without a closet, in a city full of strangers.

I signed the lease for my first apartment — 46th st. in Sunset Park — without ever seeing it in person. Only caring about having a roof over my head and living with someone who wasn’t a complete stranger, I took the opportunity to go in on an apartment with a nice girl who was an Orlando friend’s former roommate. She found the first floor apartment while I was still in Florida; I signed the paperwork and sent my deposit, not knowing much more about it than the listing’s photos and the fact that I would not have a closet or any storage at all. None of that mattered, because I just wanted to settle in before I lost the nerve. I’d figure out everything else along the way. I always did.

I didn’t really know anyone in the city.

But I had one friend, Peter, whom I met through LiveJournal — but we met in person only once before my official move. There was also a former flame who was still a close friend, but that proved to be a messier situation to navigate than I hoped and we stopped speaking not long after my arrival.

Knowing that I knew no one and had no idea what I was getting myself into — nor did I have a single piece of furniture or the means to buy new things — my little sister proposed a new idea: why don’t we pack her ex boyfriend’s (now husband’s) brand new truck with my current furniture and some second hand pieces from my mom’s store, pile three adults (Amanda, her now sister in law Shelby, and me), a kid (Tessa), a one year old baby (Roxy), and two dogs (Miku and Charlie, who was newly adopted by my friend) into it, and drive to New York?

I welcomed the comfort of knowing I’d have a softer landing upon my arrival: a bed to sleep on, a small dresser for my belongings, and a few more days with my sisters and baby niece. And so we piled up the truck and drove to Brooklyn, like a modern day episode of Beverly Hillbillies, with two dogs sleeping like angels, my niece barely making a peep as she watched movies on her portable DVD player, and me, a bundle of nerves beneath my calm exterior. Chichi was in middle school. Gosh, it feels like a lifetime ago.

But I digress. It’s bound to happen when I’m feeling nostalgic.

When I say I live in New York City (yes, Brooklyn is a borough of NYC), it’s met with mixed, but usually equally strong reactions. “Isn’t it dangerous?” “How close are you to Times Square?” “Is it like [insert tv or movie title here]?” “I’ve been there once and it was NOT for me.” or, “I’ve always dreamed of living in NYC.” New York City: polarizing, perplexing, and painted in all different lights on tv and film.

I’m not sure what my sister thought it would be like, but when we got to my neighborhood, her eyes got wide and she said, “We can turn back around right now.” Flanked by warehouses and an empty, fenced in yard that was used to work on cars, it wasn’t exactly the most glamorous neighborhood. There is no Sex and the City character who would’ve ever stepped foot on my street (remember what a stink they made when Miranda moved to Brooklyn?!) — and though a quick bike ride would give you a great view of the Statue of Liberty, it was [thankfully] nowhere near Times Square. I felt simultaneously nauseated by and excited for the change, and even its dilapidated surroundings and yard full of dirty diapers (another story for another day) didn’t deter me.

Still, I’ll never forget how I felt when my sisters left:

Desperately homesick and wondering if I made a huge mistake. I cried into Miku’s fur for days and kept odd hours to avoid being in my roommate’s way while I moped about and felt sorry for myself, the friendless broke girl without a semblance of a plan. But I made myself a promise: I would give myself a full year in New York before making a decision to leave. If I hated it in a year, I would try somewhere new. But it had to be new, because I was tired of the old. I owed it to myself to take a risk.

Across the country, Kim was feeling the same.

She moved to Los Angeles not long before I moved to NYC and called me crying on her first week there, saying she wanted to come home. As much as I wanted her to, I told her she had to give it a shot — just one year, and then we could move somewhere together. 14 years later, she’s still in Los Angeles and I’m still in New York. I guess it worked out for both of us.

I’ve always said that I wish I would’ve moved somewhere else before New York, because no other city in the US has ever compared to it. I originally had this idea that I would hop around and live a bit of a nomadic life before settling down. New York was supposed to be a short stop on a long journey, a check on my bucket list, an “I lived in NYC, once” badge of honor on my citizen-of-the-world sash. But once I lived in New York, everything else seemed to pale in comparison to the city that never sleeps, for the person who never sleeps.

I enjoyed visiting other cities, loved going to more rural areas, but I was / am not in a place where I feel ready to live my secluded country home dreams and I’ve never been to another city where I felt like, “Yes, I would be much happier here.”

There’s an amusing quote — not to be taken too seriously — that we used to have framed in our Brooklyn studio:

“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”

― John Updike

Especially when you consider that the quote was written by someone who left New York, I like to think it’s less about not believing anywhere else is worthy of residence and more about being so enveloped in our own bustling universe, our bubble full of towering skyscrapers and endless entertainment, excellent food, and cultural wealth, that we sometimes forget that there is anything else. I often take it for granted that I live in a city that many dream of visiting. I forget that what I have at my fingertips is worlds away from so many others. And I’ll admit that when I visit another city and everyone recommends one restaurant as the “must-visit” — I think, while sitting atop my New Yorker high horse, “Is that all there is?”

Of course for some New Yorkers, it’s “New York or Nowhere” — and I can’t blame anyone for that. I love this city with every fiber of my being, even when I’m exhausted by it. It gave me everything I have and that’s more than I ever dreamed.

For me, it has never been “New York or Nowhere” but always, “If not New York, where else?”

I often asked myself that question but never found the answer. Bobby would have been happy anywhere, and because of that, he always left it up to me. And I just never found a place I wanted to be more than New York. So we stayed.

I struggled, took chances, and came to a point where I started thriving and flourishing and fulfilling my dreams. I made the best friends I could ever ask for at that magical time in your twenties when your friends are a second family and every waking moment is spent with at least one if not all of them. And I had the best and worst years of my life in this city. And like most relationships, it was often love/hate and often for the very same reasons.

Case in point:

Loneliness, grief, and heartache in the city. When I’m in a healthier state of mind, there’s no better place to be lonely or heartsick. The energy, crowds, and sheer resilience of this city can fill me with hope and a drive to bounce back; if I’m feeling lonely I can step right outside my door and grab a coffee and chat with the friendly barista or walk through the park and be among so much life. But when I’m feeling hopeless, I get The Big City Blues — and there’s no worse place to feel lonely than in a sea of strangers. Isn’t it funny how both can be true?

Last year, I reached a point where I wanted to be anywhere but here. It was all too much for me: the memories, the hustle, the go go go and the overwhelming sights and sounds when all I wanted to do was weep in silence. When I lost Miku and Vester, every happy person on the street felt like a personal attack and everyone just going about their day infuriated me. I wanted to disappear into my own bed and drown myself in a sea of blankets, or float away into space and never return. The very last place I wanted to be was in the middle of everything, where life goes on even if you desperately don’t want it to.

I needed to be home, and home is not a place, it’s people.

It’s my mom, my grandparents, my sisters, my nieces and nephews, my friends. Followers started guessing I would move. I didn’t come back with my usual, “I don’t see myself ever moving back to Florida.”

We started casually looking at homes near my family in 2019, just to see what was available. I had a pocket of savings titled “Future Home” with a goal date of October 2023 that I started in April 2019, and occasionally I would move the goal date up a full year to see how that would affect my deposits. Four years felt like a good amount of time to comfortably save enough for a down payment, and far enough away to not be a scary and sudden change. And then came the pandemic, and everything felt more urgent as time went on and things went south and I couldn’t be with my family.

The pandemic forced me to stay home and deal with my grief instead of constantly running from it (which was admittedly a nice distraction while it lasted), and with the gradual healing came a renewed love of my surroundings and this amazing city that made me the person I am today. It also, however, brought the longest period of time I have ever gone without seeing my family. I worry about my grandparents and my mom constantly. My nieces and nephews are growing up so quickly. A lot of really scary stuff has happened in a short time and I’m the only one who isn’t there.

So, we bought a house.

It’s not our dream house, it’s a house with just about zero character because it’s all we could afford. But now I can say something I never fully thought I’d be able to: We own a house. [Edited to add: it’s a perfectly lovely house. It’s just not the old house with character and possible ghosts that I envisioned; it’s not me. I read this back and thought, “Wow, how bratty!”] It’s not how I thought first time home buying would go, considering we had to do it completely remotely and it was uncertain until the very last minute — another reason I haven’t discussed it. It didn’t seem like it was going to happen…and then it did.

I haven’t even told many of my friends or family about this, because 1. We didn’t think it was happening, the way things were going with the bank, 2. a part of me has been in denial about the whole thing and 3. I’ve been silently chastising myself for being such an ungrateful brat, unable to be truly happy about such a big milestone. Because I’m already missing the city I haven’t even left yet, and the friends I haven’t even been able to see all year. Maybe that’s the worst part: not getting a final year in NYC that feels somewhat normal. Or maybe it’s just the fear of change. After all, I’m not as full of moxie as I was at 22.

Truthfully, much of what I’ve come to know as My New York Life is no longer here, and it started leaving long before Covid.

As we’ve gotten older, most of my friends have all moved on to new phases of their lives: marriage, children, homes in different states. Few are still living here, more have moved during the pandemic, and there are days when I feel lost and lonely even thinking about how everything has changed around me, and I’ve somehow remained the same. But that’s a whole different post for a different day, isn’t it?

I’ve left this news to the last possible minute because it’s hard for me to fully come to terms with it — the end of a beautiful, messy, imperfect, exciting, life-changing era. I’m thrilled to be closer to my family, feel so lucky to own a home, and I know that I’ll be fine once I am there. I truly believe that Bobby and I can be happy anywhere. So why not be happy near our family, and with a mortgage that’s less than half of what we pay in rent? But to leave New York City while it’s struggling — as if my mere presence could somehow help it recover — it feels like leaving a dear friend in her time of need.

The guilt has been overwhelming me. But I had to choose: live where you love, or live near the people you love? We chose our people, because our time with them isn’t promised. This year made that crystal clear.

Holly, my dear and long time friend that you all know from her years of working with me, reminded me that New York will still be here for me when I need it.

My grandma, bless her selfless heart, said that I can always move back (as long as I take her with me, which I would gladly do!) if I change my mind. I know that, I really do. At the very least, I’ll keep my promise and give myself a full year to settle in — and I suspect that in that year you’ll come back and find me perfectly content, wondering why I was grieving my departure from a city that’s just a quick flight away, and possibly with a few more dollars in my savings than this expensive city has ever allowed. And hopefully by then, New York and all the businesses and people who make it so wonderful will be well on their way to recovery.

NYC always bounces back — this city is a lesson in strength and resilience. But right now, my heart just breaks for this city and all its people. For everyone, really. This year has been something else.

By the way, I wasn’t kidding when I said I left this till the very end — the moving trucks will be here at 9 AM. It’s 1:36 AM as I write this.

I always thought that if I ever left New York, I’d have this big send off.

I’d eat at all my favorite restaurants, visit all my favorite sites, and have a big, final farewell with all the people I love. The pandemic had other plans, so I settled for $80 worth of Dominique Ansel, and my favorite dishes from ABC Kitchen and Tea & Sympathy to go. So far, my socially distanced, masked farewells have all fallen through the cracks — so I might be leaving without a single goodbye. Although, I’m trying to meet up with Holly to take a walk through the snowy park before we leave. We haven’t seen each other since March and I miss her. I’ll miss the snow, too. And Prospect Park. So many of my best memories were spent there, with Miku, playing in the snow. I feel like so much of my life as I knew it is just…gone.

I texted my friend Angie and I said, “I wish we knew on that last trip we took, how different life would be in such a short time.” One of us had another child. Two moved. One disappeared — just full on disappeared. And I’m here for just one more day.

This isn’t the way I thought my time in the city would end. I’ve been sitting in my living room, surrounded by boxes of memories and soaking in a pool of tears, wishing I could say goodbye and struggling to even tell anyone I’m leaving. But I suppose it’s all a bit full circle, isn’t it? I’m leaving the same way I arrived: suddenly, with a truck full of belongings and without much fanfare, headed for a home I’ve only seen in pictures. At least this one has closets.