From Beast Coast to Best Coast: Why I Quietly Left NYC for a New Life in California
The journey from east coast to west coast has been a colorful one. I’m a Brooklyn girl, through and through, but I knew my heart always yearned to know what the California life was like. Year-round summer ( or at least year-round warm weather), happy people, palm trees… just a different lifestyle altogether.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I will always love New York, but what it is now is just not conducive to the person I want to be. The high stress, very hostile environment, and hustle hustle hustle lifestyle was eating me alive. I felt drained. It’s one thing to grow up in it. You learn how to ride the trains and deal with “Showtime!” every ten minutes. You learn how to stretch pocket change at the corner store. You take “excursions” to “the city” as a kid to marvel at and run the streets of 42nd before sneaking McDonald’s into the movie theaters. Or you movie hop at Court Street, then walk over to the promenade by Brooklyn Bridge park. Once you’ve carved your space out and learned where to go, New York is fun. It’s thrilling. It’s exciting. It’s lights, and fast paced everything, and so much food, and so many people.
But something has changed. Maybe it’s happening everywhere, but folks are getting meaner, angrier. Everything is rising in price except for income. Young people move to the city to thrive, but soon find themselves broken, disgruntled, jaded, and confused at how such a place, a lifestyle can just suck the life out of you. The overcrowding. The dirty, squalid conditions of places, and how it’s just thrust upon us. The severe cries for help all around, that we learned to ignore, after being ignored for decades. Because… how long have we known about homelessness on the trains and streets of New York? How long have we known about the mental health needs? And now, things are WORST. We’ve only gotten better at ignoring them. There was a shooting on a Brooklyn train that spilled out onto the train platform as people were commuting to work and school. My poor students still had to get on the trains and buses, sit in a classroom, and act like they could concentrate.
There are no spaces for us to breathe anymore. I’m not sure that there ever were. People are walking around anxious, panicked, and fractured. Plastering smiles on their faces, meanwhile they absolutely hate their jobs, or feel stuck but because of how volatile the job market is, feel trapped. Many are on auto-pilot, numbing it all out, ignoring, headphones on, disengaged, doing only what they have the energy for. Giving the bare minimum because they don’t feel valued enough, or overworking with the illusion of trying to make more money when we really need to feel more seen. To feel more secure. To feel more trust between one another. No one trusts anyone anymore in New York. We’re skeptical if someone coughs too hard, too long, or looks at you funny, or looks too “crazy” in the face… This lack of trust is making us turn on each other. Everyone for themselves since anyone can hurt you. Armor UP. The lack of love was deafening. Suffocating. Poisoning us.
Continuing to stay felt like allowing and willing abuse onto myself. It was time to go. Who wants to see their childhood city devolve into a gentrified caricature that promotes a false sense of security, while actually not protecting nor advocating for the original community native to the region? Who wants to see someone getting assaulted on the train on a daily basis after fighting with thousands of others just to get on one to go to work? Because you “have to”, “That’s life in the city”…? Who wants to see the elderly on the line at the food pantry during the heights of the pandemic? Things like this on a daily basis have a way of breaking your spirit. Who, with their human heart, can stand by and live without feeling unaffected? I was feeling pushed out. My bathroom ceiling was collapsing every month and we had mold growing in the walls. When we tried to raise hell, call 311, all they did was patch up, paint over, and ignore our pleas for a thorough fix. All they did was try to push us out of our apartment since we’ve had it for almost 30 years. So it was time for us to go so that they could raise the rent, actually renovate, and invite the “new” community in
You know what I’m talking about.
All at the expense of pushing people out. At the expense of people’s lives and livelihood. That’s not a life that I want. Paying rent but living in deplorable conditions. Roaches everywhere since there was an infestation and they refused to exterminate. I’ve never seen this in all my years living there.
Overworking, burning out, and not having the support needed to thrive, not just survive, in the work place. Being silenced then wondering why people leave silently. My situation is not unique unfortunately. It’s just discouraging to see so many of my peers feeling so run-down by this life. So young, too young for the weight of stress like this.
That’s when I knew it was time to take the leap. My boyfriend was recently laid off and feverishly looking for a job. That’s when San Diego came up. “How do you feel about San Diego?” He asked me. “I’m open” I told him. That’s all I needed to set the plan into motion. From that point on, it was just a whirlwind, as things fell into place to make the dream a reality. We put in the work, I finished out teaching the school year, then said goodbye to New York. It was abrupt. There are some loose ends. Some goodbyes were rushed. But it was time, and those who loved me dearly wished me well.
I am here on the other side of my blessing. It blows my mind that in March 2022, it was just a thought, and by July 2022 it was my reality. My first apartment with my name on the lease. A dishwasher. Laminate floors. Marble countertops. A small back patio. Space to breathe. Space to work on healing— because everything isn’t magically “fixed” just because I’m in California. There is still work to do, but at least now, there is more space.
Admittedly, starting over is scary. Making friends all over again, as an adult, is scary. And even with that, I get a chance to meet, learn, connect, and grow. I can expand. My life is no longer limited to just NYC. Or even just the east coast. I get to welcome this new chapter with open arms, tender heart, and sound mind. I get to step in with gratitude and grace.
So cheers to finally saying “ENOUGH”, and taking the leap to get to the other side of the life you know you deserve.
.ss