"It is is less often said that New York is also, at least for those of us who came there from somewhere else, a city for only the very young." - Joan Didion, Goodbye to All That
As much as 2018 started as "the year of magical thinking," it ends, and so 2018 begins as the year of saying "goodbye to all that." A lot of things happened this year, most notably
- I moved to New York, I turned 24
- My family sold the home that I called home for the past 18 years.
Predictably in 2019
- I return home to a new home
- I will turn 25
- I'll celebrate a year of living in New York
All of this just feels like some kind of cosmically aligned ending for me, saying goodbye to my early 20s, my childhood home, and I have to begin seriously considering, how I will say goodbye to New York.
Anyone that knows me knows that I very much lusted over the fictional symbolism of New York. I still do, honestly. It still makes me so happy to see the Empire State Building sticking out of the horizon on the way back from JFK (or Brooklyn..). But New York isn't a place I've ever considered living in for more than 2 or 3 years. So as I wrap up my first year, I have to start considering--at 25---what next? What do I do with the next 5 years? And it freaks me out, as my parens hit their mid 50s (my grandfather passed when he was 70), that I have only a decade or two left with them. For me this year is about wrapping up the loose ends of my early 20s, embracing a longer term, steady life full of mundanities unfathomable to 17 year old me. Mundanities that would upset the 17 year old me but the current 24 year old me really really really wants.
