Carte Blanche Life

While I was out the other night in SF, this dude asked me, yelling over the music, "Why would you leave NY?" I get this a lot- people look at me really quizzically, like I've got shit all up in my teeth, when I tell them that I quit my great job, left my awesome Brooklyn studio, abandoned all my friends, to come back to Man Jose- without a job, into my parent's house.

Although the thought of moving back always loomed in the back of my mind, I still can't believe I actually did it- and for no plausible reason, at that. It took me a good 2 depressing years to get used to the big city- I made awesome friends; I got used to the freezing winters; I had a doctor, a gyno, and an acupuncturist; I knew which trains to take to get myself from the Bronx to the Lower East Side (D to the F); I figured out where to get the best pizza and soup dumplings and cupcakes. What more do you need?

But I guess it turns out that I need more. I was bored in my really fun, yet such-a-dead-end-low-paying job. Exhausted by all the parties and the shows and the going-outs that I couldn't even afford, but agreed to go anyway. NY has a way of making you feel like you're at the center of the world- but at the end it was only masking the fact that I was broke, and pretty misdirected.

Was this an easy decision? Hell no. Leaving NY meant I was leaving all my friends, my comfort zone. I had friends in the industry, people who I could call if I lost my job, who could help me get another. For the first time in my life, I even had a booty call.

So WHY did I decide to come back here? Because I could. I have no kids. No significant partner. No mortgage. I guess I felt that this was perhaps the last crazy thing I could do, the last leap of faith I could take, in order to possibly make my life better. Honestly, I don't even know what that means, to make my life better, and I certainly have no idea HOW I'm gonna do it. But I knew that my life was not really going anywhere in NY. When you realize something like that, you've gotta figure out how to change things, asap.

So why not move home??? There's a huge stigma against moving back to your hometown- I avoided it for 10 years out of the mere pleasure of telling people I lived far, far away. In the end, I think I moved back simply because it was exactly what I feared MOST. I figured I had nothing to lose, and I certainly am up for the challenge.

And in this economy- it's possibly the best decision I've ever made in my life. EVER. It's a carte blanche life, which is scary- I have no career network, and I certainly have no booty call. But it's a chance to totally reinvent myself, which is, at 28, so exciting.