Turn and face the strange -David Bowie
As we know, life moves in seasons and this is the season of my life in which I uproot, evaluate, and find a new beginning. Appropriately timed with autumn, I have shed what I knew for so long. For over twenty-five years I lived in Atlanta, other than the two years I spent in Florida during graduate school. At the beginning of September I packed up my life and moved to the New York City area to work out of Manhattan- a transfer with my company.
I always pictured myself living in New York, but, it’s funny, I thought it would happen sooner. During college and high school I imagined my twenty-three-year-old super-adult self in Manhattan, wearing power suits and high heels. From my experience, life has a way of giving us exactly what we ask for, but laughing at us by presenting it in a much different package than we expected. It’s like asking the grammar teacher, “Can I go to the bathroom?” and the grammar teacher says, “I don’t know, can you?” Moving to New York, is one of the many can-yous of my life.
Instead of moving to this city as a high-powered twenty-something corporate-something living like Carrie Bradshaw on the Upper East Side, I’m thirty-one, living in a neighborhood of New Jersey that I previously knew nothing about (but absolutely love), and almost never wear heels because ouch- I now walk everywhere and work on my feet all day. But the resulting place and circumstances I have landed in are just right for me and I am overjoyed with this new part of my life.
As with any major change, the road getting here was not smooth. I mean that both literally and figurative. My boyfriend and I had to cram everything we owned in a fifteen-foot Uhual and drove, what ended up being, about sixteen hours from Atlanta. Multiple times on that drive, we questioned our own sanity and asked if it was all worth it. As anyone who has made a significant move knows, the process is trying and stressful. But now that I’ve been here for two months and ask myself if it was all worth it, the answer is unequivocally yes.
The most difficult aspect so far is being away from my friends, trying to make new connections, and reevaluating my sense of self. This move offers something of a blank slate and I hope to take advantage of this fresh start by establishing a new routine, healthy habits, and better self-understanding. A new environment with its many challenges and anxiety-triggering uncomfortable newness provides an opportunity for me to face some of my many fears that I probably wouldn’t face by remaining in my safe Atlanta shell. The biggest reason I wanted to move to this area- besides my obsession with Art Deco architecture and brownstones- is to get out of my comfort zone. I am embracing change and hoping that change reaches out in return that I may live the fullest version of my life.
With that, here are some photos of the things I’m loving about my new home:
Lovely old brownstones
Great local restaurants like Morandi in the West Village
Sunrises and sunsets over the city
Local farmer’s markets almost daily
Did I mention the brownstones?
Central Park… obviously
Neptune Your Dial 