Falling in & out of love with New York City

Last year, I fell out of love with New York City.

But before we get to that, let’s go back to the beginning.

For context, I grew up in a small farming community in western Minnesota. We’re talking 1,900 people small. While there were parts of this that I loved (expansive landscapes, seeing the horizon line at any given point, the simplicity, to name a few), I felt its smallness all around me. I longed for more to do, more to see, more school opportunities, more types of people. I lived out my high school years to the fullest I could and remember them fondly, but a part of me knew I’d leave when the time came and not live there again.

I had my very first visit to New York when I was 17. It was a whirlwind and filled with things like Times Square, Broadway, and Central Park. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of intimidation or overwhelm, rather, I felt energized and captivated. It all felt thrilling and dazzling. I couldn’t put words to it at the time, but I was drawn to how completely opposite the city was to my hometown. There was this sense that anything could happen in this place, of which seemed so contrast to my hometown. The visit opened my world and expanded what I could imagine for myself.

Fast forward a number of years, I went to New York City for a photography conference. I was now 26 and had been living in Minneapolis for awhile. I made the trip on my own and was staying in Gowanus (a neighborhood in Brooklyn I knew nothing about at the time). It was mid-September. I remember on a particularly sunny afternoon, I stepped away from the conference and sat along the canal. It was brilliantly sunny and I tilted my face toward the light, closed my eyes, and breathed. I made the decision then that I was going to live here. I didn’t know when or how, but I felt it in my bones. It was one of those full-body knowings.

A few years later, it happened. I had applied to a number of Master of Architecture programs and quietly applied to a few in New York. When I got into all of them, I was in delirious, ecstatic disbelief. It wasn’t a question if I would go, it was confirmation of what I knew long ago.

I drove cross-country and arrived in June of 2019 to start an introductory course for my program. Reader, I can’t accurately describe the magnitude of emotions I felt. I was so damn excited. Scared shitless, too, but mostly, I was just walking on air.

I first stayed with my cousin in New Jersey while I got my whereabouts. Very quickly, my life was absolute chaos; I was at school often over ten hours a day, I started photographing weddings fairly quickly with a Brooklyn-based team, and I was looking at apartments during the small pockets of free time I had. But let me tell you, I was absolutely smitten. I was so completely starry-eyed and dumbfounded that I had actually made this my reality. I was completely unphased by the chaos.

Until this last year, I had maintained this dizzying love for the city.

Without much warning, things took a startling turn this past summer. I remember one July afternoon sitting in my living room, looking around the space, and thinking to myself — this ain’t it. The thought frightened and startled me.

For months, both leading up to that July afternoon and beyond, I’d step outside and feel immediately over-stimulated. Too many sounds, too much movement, too much, too much, too much. I’d barrel forward without acknowledging my surroundings and loath the palpable heat sticking to my skin. Or I simply wouldn’t want to go outside at all. No, it’s not a coincidence that my exhaustion with New York City coincided with my long season of depression (more on that here). The city wasn’t the cause, but it certainly didn’t do me any favors.

Somewhere along the line, the reality of just how hard it is to live here settled in over my vision. The tiny apartments that cost an obscene amount, the endless sight-lines of concrete. The unpredictability of the subway. The piles of trash littered at every turn. The level of noise you can’t seem to escape as hard as you try.

I used to love the anonymity of getting lost in a sea of strangers, people watching and seeing every sort of interaction, occurrence, and variety of person. At some point, though, it just started to feel lonely. I used to love the close proximity of bodies on the subway, throngs of people crossing 5th Ave in Manhattan. I used to love sitting at the bar of a small, tucked away restaurant. Loud, sweaty, and pulsing. But the pandemic lingers on my skin, it radiates under my rib cage. The fear of closeness like an ember. I used to love leaving my apartment and not knowing where the day would take me (New York has a way of sweeping you up like that, from one serendipitous occurrence to the next). At some point though, I craved an apartment that felt steady. I craved a stillness, slowness, and restfulness to my days.

My relationship with this city has changed. No, I’m not in love with New York City in the same way anymore. How I feel about this place is nuanced and complicated and fluid. There are still days when out and about that I’ll feel a flurry of that dizzying love again. I’ll feel the I-can’t-believe-I-get-to-live-here echo. I’ll romp through Prospect Park with Joey and marvel at how close such an incredible place is to us. I’ll get last-minute Broadway tickets and be up to Times Square within a half hour. I’ll walk along the water in Brooklyn Heights and marvel at the 19th century apartments tucked away on quiet streets. I’ll stumble upon a new-to-me gallery or taste the best croissant I’ve ever had.

I thought I was going to leave last summer. And then I didn’t.

It didn’t feel right to leave, even as staying felt hard.

So, what’s next?

I don’t know.

I honestly never thought I’d be asking that question. I remember telling friends during school that I didn’t think I’d ever leave. I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else.

But, turns out, I’ve now asked the ‘what’s next’ question more times than I can count. I’ve entertained so many different possibilities and played out too many scenarios. I’ve exhausted the same loop of what if’s, spun my wheels trying to force a decision.

I’ve been in this place of unknowing for months. And while I’ve felt irritated by my indecision, I’ve had a bit of an a-ha moment recently.

If it takes that much effort to make a decision, it’s not time to. And the more I focus on perceived lack here, the more it colors my vision. I feel all the more urgency to fix, to force.

Rather than racking my brain for the answer, rather than zeroing my sights in on lack, I’ve shifted my attention to what it is I yearn for place — for home — to feel like. I’ve shifted to placing myself squarely here, in this present moment. I let go of how, and when, I arrive at the answers I crave.

I am so much more clear on what I want home to feel like. It feels easy, generative, gentle. It feels spacious, secure, and comfortable. It’s warm, bright, alive. It feels like meeting, like the shore meeting land. Like coming together, like your hand in mine.

When I look, I can see plainly the graces that meet me each day. They’re in all the faces I’ve met since bringing Joey into my life. It’s in being remembered at my favorite cafe. It’s in hearing my neighbor play the piano. In how the sun splits into my room mid-afternoon.

The more I place my focus here, I ready myself for welcoming whatever home looks like next, whenever it comes.

When I moved here, there was no resistance. The decision felt easy. I’ve come to a point where I feel assured that the answer will reveal itself when the time is right. And it will feel like arriving here.

Until then —