If you aren’t following me on Twitter or friends with me on Facebook (and really why aren’t you?) then you might have missed the news. After 10 years, I have left the city that was the closest thing I could ever call home and moved back to my southern roots. I moved around every two to four years growing up (no, not a military brat), so New York is the longest I have either lived anywhere. I do feel a sense of accomplishment with the 10 years landmark in New York City. I think I can call myself a New Yorker now……and I have left. New York, NY to Austin, TX.
I have been in Austin for 9 days now and each day I love it more and more. I am shedding my NYC skin layered with grit, stress, and the buzz of continuous movement to a calmer, more silly, and playful me. In NY you work hard and play harder. After 9 years of doing such, I felt a change was needed. It took about a year to figure out what that change would be and I am so grateful to have to opportunity and ability to relocate.
At first I thought maybe in Austin unwashed hair, little make up, and out of it from moving stress was all that a woman needs to get hit on often and everywhere. But the more I spend time in the town, talking to shop clerks, people at bars and the like, the more that I am realizing the Austonians are not hitting on me, they are just welcoming and happy. Happy.
This is the change of life that I have been looking for. It’s not to say that New Yorkers are not welcoming and happy. The kindness and generosity of New Yorkers is more vast than the stereotype leads people to think. It’s more the city itself with it’s constant grind and non stop work ethic: one opens up pockets of time only to fill it with more activities — more work, more drinking, more running from one thing to the next. It gets exhausting and it takes work to unwind in New York, to find some solitude, a moment of peace, a moment to reflect. And that is what one can rely on, moments. What about an hour, a day, a week. After 10 years, the grind wore me down, but I do not begrudge any of my time in New York. I am proud to say I lived in New York for as long as I did and I am proud to say I am leaving before I became so weighted down by the city life that I grew to hate it.
New York City gave me so much. It is a city I will always be grateful to for allowing me to hide and be discovered at my choosing. I reinvented myself several times over the years, sometimes more domestic and suburban, sometimes more drunk and debaucherous. I had four different careers in New York, none of which would have been able to move in and out of without the community I built and the city’s transient and fluid nature.
I will always love New York.
My last months there I walked the streets thinking, “I no longer belong to New York and New York no longer belongs to me.” Now I realize New York and I will always belong to one another, I just needed to shed skins, this time, in another town.
One of the hardest things about leaving New York is managing people’s emotions about my departure. The wise bartender at my old local watering hole said that when he left NY, his friends refused to believe it until he was in the car with all his belongings boxed up and he was waving goodbye. It’s something about leaving a city that is so iconic that makes people question their position in it he said.
I encountered crossed arms and shaking heads of disappointment (no. you can’t leave.), to the envious, to the angered envious, to those who dismissed my move saying that I will miss New York too much, to those who spoke about me in terms of “running away” and “moving on.” To which all I can respond is that this move is by choice and it is one that was well thought out. The running away and moving on comments is harder for me to process because both have negative connotations. I am not running, but leaving. And the moving on phrase makes it sound like one has to leave NY in order to enter the next chapter. I feel strongly that for me, leaving NYC will lead me to better health, I will be a better partner, and at some point, a better parent. Nothing against anyone who manages to do it all in New York. Hats off to ya’ll. All I can say is that I am doing what is best for my partner and me.
I have made this big lifestyle change with my partner in crime, Nate. Since two Nates make appearances in the podcast and even though I worked hard to distinguish the two in podcast Episode #24 “Sex Reporter,” confusion still arises. So here we go.
I am with Nate:
aka the-one-I-lost-my-hetero-virginity-to-at-26, read Nerve piece.
who I lovingly refer to as Boo on Twitter and FB. (again, why aren’t you there?)
not introduced as “my sex party buddy,” but we do attend such events now.
the one who encouraged me to write about my sex party exploits and helped conceptualize the podcast.
the one who broke up with me and who, for many years, I wanted another chance with.
the one who when things were going down with Carmen starting to sniff around again and asked for another chance.
And so we have.
A new chapter has begun.
I wish you much luck and happiness. You had the chance to do what so many small town people dream about, you lived in NYC and for a good while. You’ll always be able to say “yeah, I lived in NYC for 10 years” and people will want to immediately sit down and let you ramble on while they listen, wide-eyed and wonder-filled, about the gritty fairytale that NYC can be.
Do you plan to come back and visit? I hope to run into you again if you do come back for one of the sex blogger events.
Hi Lily,
Thanks so much for your comment. Yeah, I look forward to using my bragging rights and telling tales of NYC. Something else the wise bartender said is that I will always see NYC featured in TV shows, movies, and commercials and I will feel a pang of pride and sadness that I am not there right at that moment.
I do plan on coming back to visit. And I do hope our paths cross. They may in fact cross for the NYC Sex Blogger Calendar Release party. Congratulations, by the way. I look forward to seeing your sexiness in the calendar. Until then see ya in Twitland.
xxMia
Welcome to Austin. Hope you like it here.
Thanks, Saul. I’m loving it so far.
Hi Mia — I thought I’d lend moral support (though I doubt you need it). I moved from one city to another 18 months ago and also moved in with a man — for the first time in a decade. Most people forget that every day we get to choose who we are being in the world, mainly because who we are being becomes an unconscious habit. Shed your skin. Fully embrace where you are and what you want your life to be like, and most of all, who you want to be. Which, ultimately, is the same thing everyone else wants to be. Happy.
Hi Kayar – I can always use the moral support, especially now when I am one month into the move and hard has replaced fun. You bring up a very good point in the unconscious habit of choice. Thanks for your insight. And much continued success with your relationship, work, and choice making. xxMia
Hi Mia – Congratulations on the move. You’re right about NYC – living here can be an amazing adventure, but after a few years it can wear you down. There can be too much to see, too much to do, too many people to meet. It makes you feel like you need to experience everything, all the time. I’ve seen people that have live here for 15 or 20 years that have gotten into routines to deal with the constant stimulation. They end up losing their sense of amazement for the city. I would rather move away and enjoy this magnificent city from afar than allow it to become routine. Even if you leave the city will always be here and you will always be a part of it.
I also think that a big move every few years is healthy. It allows you to immerse yourself into another community and start a love affair with another city. My wife and I are still in a three year tryst with Brooklyn, and absolutely loving it. We’re thinking that it will last for another three years then on to new pastures. Right now Austin is top on our list. We were hoping that we would meet you some Saturday evening at a little warehouse party in Prospect Heights (you know the one!), but perhaps down the road we’ll meet in Texas. Keep up the podcast – we can’t wait to hear about your adventures in Austin.
Hey Scott,
Thanks for the post. Everything you wrote is spot on. My relationship with the city was becoming very routine. I’m so looking forward to coming back to NYC for a visit. To be there as a tourist and not as a native will be an interesting, hopefully, less exhausting adventure. The constant stimulation of the city definitely created major peaks and valleys in my well being.
Good luck to you and your wife on the Brooklyn tryst. And, of course, I know the party you are referring to. I still have a credit there. So if I am ever in NYC and the dates align, I will be there.
Thanks for your support and well wishes on my move.
xxMia