You’ve always wanted to live in New York, haven’t you? Imagine loving NYC and fantasizing about living here for most of your life, and then, finally having the opportunity to make that fantasy come true. It may have been an uphill battle, but you’ve arrived. You’re in NYC, working and living for a period –– a few years, or perhaps longer. Maybe, you came to go to college and stayed for a job. Maybe you came for love, and met the guy or girl of your dreams, got married (or not), but decided to stay because you hate long-distance relationships, and well, you’re in love, after all. Or maybe, you came because you love New York and no job or person was involved . For whatever reason, you made it to New York, and despite big city life’s ups and downs, you’re somehow figuring it all out.
But for a minute, forget all the romance. Somewhere along the way, between practically selling your soul to get here and affording to make the escalating rent month after month and all the other expenses you need to pay just to stay in the city, life happened. So you’re not really too sure that you should be in New York any longer. In fact, you’ve decided that it could be time to leave New York.
I know, let’s get this straight. You wanted to live in NYC for as long as you can remember, and now, you are…..but want to leave?
You’re not the only one. It happens.
In a nutshell, the above is the premise of the book that follows in the footsteps of Joan Didion’s famed essay “Goodbye to All That.”
Edited by Sari Botton, Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York isn’t a new book. It was published in 2013. The book is an anthology in which 28 female writers tell their stories about falling in love with New York and eventually leaving for more space, cleaner air, a degree, relationship, house, family, sanity.
I adore this book. My favorite essay is by Maggie Estep, who, sadly, passed away in 2014. Here’s a selection of quotes from her story…
On her first encounter with New York:
“I fell in love with New York City one day in 1971, when I saw dozens of people blithely stepping over a dead body on a sidewalk. I was seven years old, walking in Midtown with my grandfather. It was summer. The air smelled like rotting fruit. Steam rose from food vendor carts. There were snarls of traffic, bleating horns, women in cheap knee-length skirts. And that dead body. On the sidewalk.”
On one of her apartments in the East Village:
“I moved into a room in a rent-controlled apartment on Avenue C. There were rats. I would hear them at night, knocking things over. I’d put boots on, walk into the kitchen, flick the lights on, and find the rats nonchalantly snacking on dry goods, like a bunch of old people at an early-bird buffet.”
On realizing that she might leave the city:
“….I started taking longer and longer bike rides, pushing into the far reaches of the outer boroughs, looking for still-untamed pockets of my city. I was location scouting. For books I was writing or would write. For images of the city that would burn into my heart. I didn’t know it yet, but I was starting the long process of breaking up with New York.”
I’d be lying if I said the thought of leaving New York has never crossed my mind.
I’ve been asking myself a few questions lately. “What happens if/when New York loses its magic? Does that mean it’s time to leave? Will it happen to me? Will I know when it does? As I get older, I wonder about sustaining this insanely overpriced lifestyle, and how practical it is to continue living in NYC. I also love my time away, and adore exploring places I’ve never been to before. (I type this right now from a hotel in Basque Country, Spain.)
Would love to know what you think about loving and leaving New York. I don’t think there’s an easy answer. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York is available on Amazon.
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Tracy Kaler says
Hi Edward! Thank you for commenting on the blog. I know that you comment regularly on Facebook, but getting this comment is truly a treat. 🙂
I know how much you love NYC. Once a New Yorker always a New Yorker. It’s in your blood!
Emma says
I came for college, stayed for a job, and left for love. I remember going out to visit family, and the feeling of home as the train pulled back in to grand central coming back. Leaving was a slow separation to the bridge and tunnel lifestyle (across the Hudson), but the commute was a killer, and while the city was so close, it was just so far away at the same time. I’ll always be nostalgic for it and remember feeding off of its energy, and it will always be a familiar place, but it’s been so long since it felt like home there.
Thank you for the book recommendation – I’m really looking forward to checking it out!
Tracy Kaler says
Hi Emma! I hope you still visit New York. 🙂
Emma says
I’ve been living here for almost two years, and I’m still waiting to feel like home. I’ve finished my master’s degree and hunting for jobs, but the struggle is unbearable, and I feel so lost. I’m away from everyone I love, pay 4x the rent of what I paid living at home and I don’t even love where I’m living like I used to. Still, I wouldn’t know where to go. If I move home, I will have “lost.” Given up. And people will talk to me like “oh my god you’ve had the most exciting life living in NYC, tell me all about it.” And after a few months, it will be a faded memory, and no one will ask, I will simply be a girl who once used to live in NYC and people not wanting to hear about it anymore. Yes, it sounded all pessimistic, but the truth is: I want to live in NYC, and I want to move from NYC. It’s a love/hate relationship, and it always will be. There’s nowhere to go from here, and there’s everywhere to go from here. I just hope I can soon realize that I should enjoy my early twenties (soon going on 25 iih) and receive what the city has to offer and THEN think “I lived in NYC, I did what I wanted, and it’ll always be my first love that I’ll see again once in a while.”
Tracy Kaler says
Emma,
You are not alone in the way that you feel. I promise. Many long-time New Yorkers have a love-hate relationship with the city. It’s okay. New York is a lot to handle, it’s like the unruly boyfriend, the one that isn’t the safe choice, yet the one you love with the most passion. You’re only 25! Savor every moment of living here, but don’t beat yourself up if you’re ready to leave. It’s a tough decision to make, but only you know what is right for you. And if staying is, then do. If it’s not, you are not giving up. You’ve just decided to move on to another chapter. And if you do leave and regret it, New York isn’g going anywhere. The city will welcome you back!
Marletta says
This is a highly relevant story given the incredible cost of living (financially and otherwise) for those who’ve come to NYC over say the last three or more decades, as well as those who’ve moved in within the last 10 years.
I’ve lived here, now, for 50 years. And I could not afford to move here now as a 20-year-old, nor would I likely be able to find a job to support living here as I was able to do way back then. As I see the rents around the five boroughs versus the pay scale for “real” life jobs (not the exceptional ones with big bucks starting salaries), I cannot imagine how so many young men and women can come here at all.
To Emma, I would say, a love/hate relationship with NYC is far more common than you can imagine, even for those of us who have lived here (and if we’re lucky, will leave from here) and enjoyed a great deal. If you are only here for a few years and have to move (or choose to), this is not a failure. Yes, enjoy what you can while you are here because there is a great deal to enjoy. Hopefully it will outweigh the challenges. No city or town or village is perfect.
If you can find things that you enjoy, and the city has so much to offer that the challenge is often too many options to choose from, and focus on them, it can make it easier to assimilate.
I came here with no money, no friends, no job because I came for college. I never, ever imagined staying on. It was get the degree and get out. Somehow, that didn’t happen. I met people at school, at part-time work (I ended up with two part-time gigs and this was the 70s) and everywhere I went. And I was never one to enjoy being or meeting strangers.
The city is not a good environment for some people, and that’s OK. You don’t have to love NYC, it may not be at all what you expected (it sounds that way) and it’s really for folks who can deal with harsh reality more than coveted and perhaps long-held dreams (fantasies?) about what it should be, versus what it is.
Tracy, there’s another story possibly here. What about those folks, like myself and others, who came here for a specific job, a relationship or school and really, really did NOT want to come. But…then we stayed and our relationship bloomed. Just a thought. I still laugh when I think back to high school and everyone, on our class trip to NYC, was like: OOH, I want to live here. My comment: Ugh. Who would to live here?
Who, indeed. Turns out I would, did and am. And grateful for it all, which includes the challenges of working for a less than ideal income, and other issues of daily life anywhere.
Tracy Kaler says
Hi Marletta,
Thanks for your thoughts on this! I do think some come to New York with no expectations and then fall in love and stay for many years. Or maybe they stay because it’s tough to leave the city, even if they know that another life is ready and waiting at half the price. I think a lot of people dream of giving it a go in NYC but they’re too scared to try. They’re afraid of failure or not being able to hack it, and they stay in their safe world instead. I have so much respect for Emma moving here and trying New York. She will have no regrets and never look back and say, “If only….”
Marletta says
I agree that Emma and others should be supported for coming and trying, no matter how long they stay or if they leave. To try something no matter the outcome, this should be applauded.
I don’t think one can stay in NYC by sheer inertia, though; it takes too much energy to just maintain your life/quality of life for an average person (if you’re rich, that’s another story). Over the years, I’ve been offered jobs in different cities (Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Boston, where I lived for a time). I stayed here not so much because it was NYC, but primarily because of the friends I had made over the years both in the city and in Europe (very easy to see them even if only a stopover for a flight, but easy for them or me to fly in or out).
It’s a lot easier (and sometimes cheaper, depending on what speaks to you) to live in other places and as I looked ahead to semi-retirement, a Long Island friend and I discussed other options. They were ruled out for various reasons, not the least of which was the political situation in various states.
But aside from friends, I just can’t necessarily have the quality of life elsewhere as a single woman, who does not (and will not) drive, who can easily get around in and outside the state. Then there are the cultural offerings. It’s true that there are a lot of good things going on around the country, but…nothing comparable to NYC, provided you can afford it, if only periodically.
But as I said I never, ever imagined living here, staying here after college. And I think the backstory of how someone comes to stay (again, it can’t be from sheer laziness; getting and keeping a job and an apartment is work here. And always was.) when they really don’t think much of the city is as interesting as the myriad stories of what people did to get here and to stay.
It’s all about expectations and, as you noted, fears that might stop you. I was lucky in that I was so happy to get into a college I wanted that I didn’t even focus on anything else. I was too young, and too naive, to really fear the city. And between work and college, didn’t even really get to know the city till almost a decade after graduating (I won’t even comment on how many weekends I spent on Amtrak going back to Philadelphia! Of course a lot of that was because my guy had left NYC to move back to where I came from! Even then I wasn’t lured back.)
I love how your blog does a great job of presenting all aspects of the city, and your honesty in dealing with the challenges that living here presents. It’s the kind of info I wish was available when I was 20 and coming to the city. Very helpful. Even now, after all these years, I find it of interest and do learn about other parts of the city, especially the other boroughs. Today, especially, it’s not all about Manhattan.
Tracy Kaler says
Thank you so much for your kind words. Glad to be of help! I hope all works out for Emma. 😉