Why I’m breaking up with NY

I have told this to so many people over the last few years that I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard it from me yet:  New York is a city that everyone should visit, but no one should live in.

It is a place where you can see fantastic live music shows, just because you’re waiting to ride the subway:

It’s a place where you will hear 10 different languages walking down a single block, and a place where you can eat any type of food you can possibly imagine, or buy any think your mind can make up (although it won’t always come cheap).  You can go into museums with hundreds of thousands of years of history or 4,000 years of art for free, and run into celebrities on the street (remind me to tell you the story of how I inadvertently insulted Maggie Gyllenhaal one day at my food co-op some other time), and watch movies being filmed on your block and get a slice of REALLY good pizza at 3am.

It’s also a place where everyone’s got an agenda, and people often feel like this:

compliments of http://fuckiminmy20s.tumblr.com

Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in the city, but I’ll admit it:  I don’t usually feel like a New Yorker.  My friend David always says I’m visiting from out of town when we hang out, and I guess he’s right; I know my way around the subway, and I know a good slice of pizza, but I don’t have the hardness that’s required to live in NY.  I don’t have the appetite to step on other people to get ahead, I don’t have the aggressiveness to demand that I be the center of attention, I don’t have the drive to work for 80 hour weeks, i don’t like living in a closet-sized apartment…

NYers have, for the most part, forgotten how to appreciate life.  Everyone’s caught up in this whirlwind to survive, to “make it”, whether it be on broadway or wall street or politics or… whatever.  People work their asses off with the idea that someday it’ll pay off and they’ll finally have time to do what they want to do.  They live in the “concrete jungle”, rarely going even an hour north to the vast national parks and historic landmarks of the Hudson Valley, only seeing the brightest of the stars in the sky, because the smog and light pollution blocks out any that are too far away.  New York is a city of uncomfortable truths, where people consistently look past the homeless begging on the street because there’s someone on every other corner, where the police are sometimes more foe than friend, where people are so disconnected from each other that someone can die on the subway and not have anyone notice for hours.  It is a city that is part of the pulse of the world, and unfortunately, what happens there has repercussions for everywhere else.  You have to have a thick skin to live in NY, to put up with the endless crowds and the lack of privacy and the fast pace and the inequality.

The Onion did a cutting-too-close-to-home article last year, and I honestly wish more people would realize how much they sacrifice to be in this city, how much energy they put into it, how much space and freedom they give up, and how many values they have to compromise to live in this place.  I didn’t realize how living in NY was changing me until I left.

I remember distinctly the first day I arrived in Australia, because I arrived in Cairns at 5am and had nowhere to be until noon.  I walked around the city aimlessly until the sun rose and I found a tiny cafe that was open, plunked my bag down, and ordered an omelette.  There was a lone man at a table inside, so I went outside to sit and watch the city start up during the day.  A minute later, the guy comes out, sits down next to me, and strikes up a conversation about my massive backpack.  I was initially wary; if this had been NY, he would have either been trying to hit on me or sell me on some tour package, but it turned out he was just making conversation for the sake of getting to know someone new (dropped information about his wife and children into the conversation in the first 10 minutes, and never once told me what to buy).  I found this to be true of almost everyone I met in Australia, people were out to enjoy themselves, not to get something out of someone.  There wasn’t this fierce sense of competition, of having to keep up with the joneses and have the most expensive shoes or fanciest watch.  People would take a day off of work because they felt like going surfing, and the economy hasn’t collapsed yet!

Coming back to NY for the past three months has been a really interesting experience for me.  I’ve seen friends who have been dealing with trying to keep their businesses afloat in a bad economy, friends who are living with their parents because the economy is bad, friends who are in jobs they hate but they keep them because they need the money, and friends who are genuinely happy and doing good things.  NY doesn’t kill everyone’s soul, but it’s definitely not a nurturer.

As I leave now, Occupy Wall Street is gaining traction, which is exciting… it seems that more people are starting to realize they’ve been dealt a crap deal, with the economy still not recovering and unemployment in the city at a high… you try paying for a $2000 dollar a month apartment when you’re not bringing any money in, and then worry about paying for the subway, food, clothing, etc.  NY is a microcosm of all the disenchantment people are feeling all over America.  It will be interesting to see where this heads, if it turns into something that actually powerfully affects social change, or just diffuses out into a non-issue.  It has to be here, in the place where things started to break down in the first place, where America can start to change what happens next, but I don’t want to be around to see it firsthand.

You see, I’m in love with Australia.  And I’m in love with a boy. And now, I get to go home (hopefully permanently), and be with both boy and country for the rest of my time on earth.

NY, we had a good run, but I’m tired of being abused and disappointed by you.  I wish you all the best, but we’re done, I’m tired of putting so much energy into you and getting so little back.  I’ve found someone new.  Please be happy for me, and know, if you ever decide you need help, I’m perfectly willing to show you how to be happy… you just gotta learn to cut down on the work and not wear so much black

Au Revoir!