Stuff I've Learned: Friends Move Away

I have a friend--let's call her Poetess. Poetess and I met during grad school and instantly connected over our love of tea, food, common alma mater and left-brained husbands. Over the years, she's been the kind of friend I can meet for lunch and spend an entire afternoon with, laughing and commiserating over something or another.

This week, she's moving out of the City. Like so many other friends I've met since moving here, she is leaving (her husband got a job in another city), and God knows when I'll see her again. Hopefully soon, but it's hard. I have friends I love in LA who I haven't seen in almost five years.

Maybe it's just my circle of friends, but sooner or later, the question of leaving always comes up , and, in many cases, the answer is "It's time." She's at least the fourth close girlfriend of mine to leave the city in the last few years, and every time, there's a space left in my life that is never quite filled again. And I wonder, is there something about NYC that makes a person feel there will always be an end? Do most of us come knowing it will be home just for a little while, not forever?

In a city where it's so hard to break through people's defenses and find a true friend (especially when you're out of school), each person lost is not easily replaced. Could this be why, I, too, think I'll eventually leave? And if so, can I ever convince myself this City is home?

Today, we had shared our last pots of tea, and said our final goodbye on a corner in Astor Place. "I'll be back," she said. To visit, she meant. And I promised her I'd try to visit too.

Can New York City Feel Like Home?

I've been living in the City for four-plus years now, and I'm about to tell you something that will make the skin of real New Yorker crawl--I moved here from Los Angeles...and I still miss California. You have to understand. I loved the visiting New York before I actually moved here. It's an energizing, alive, exciting place, but once I had an address here, it never quite became "home."

My husband--let's call him "City Guy"--loves New York. He's lived here forever, and he can't imagine living anywhere else. We met in NYC, so thank the city for that, but like a lot of newlyweds, we're at that point in our lives where we're wondering if NYC is the kind of place we want to settle down in. Do we really want to pay a million for 800 sq-foot box in Manhattan or move somewhere, like Texas, where we could get our very own McMansion with a pool for that money? Just kidding about Texas, but anyhow...a lot of the friends I've met since moving here have themselves moved away from NY over the years. So I wonder: do most people eventually leave?

I was thinking about this during a bout of insomnia last night, and realized I hated LA when I first moved there, and it took me about four years to "conquer" the city, learn how to navigate the city like a native, find my favorite little shops and restaurants, the quirky little neighborhoods, the doctor and dentist I adored, the friends and neighborhood that felt like "mine"--in effect, to accumulate all the experiences, places and people that made me feel homesick for LA when I left.

So I came to thinking that maybe the same principle works for NYC. Maybe it's time for me to stop kicking and screaming, stop bemoaning my lack of sunshine and warmth (though, yes, spring has sprung in NYC, and I can just feel my brain coming alive again), my lack of swimmable beaches and hikable mountains, my lack of four-wheeled transportation with which to transport my groceries from the supermarket, which I also lack, and really set out to find the New York places, people, experiences, treasures that will make this city feel like home and not just a big, bad indifferent city full of strangers.

So, that's why I'm here. I'm going to give it a real shot. I'm going to walk the streets in search of a sense of "home." Yeah - I should have done this years ago, but there was grad school and work and my nose was so close to the grindstone I couldn't see much. But there's a time and place for everything. Come along and see what I find...