“Don’t You Miss It?”
I get asked this question more than anything else. “Don’t you miss New York? You must.”
I hate to disappoint. But the answer’s… nope.
Sure; I miss certain things about New York, or people who still live there. I miss real bagels. I miss Russ & Daughter’s whitefish salad. I miss my neighborhood Thai restaurant. I miss my besties. But I don’t miss New York. I don’t miss the traffic. The tourists. The pretentiousness. The grit. The prices. (Seriously, $16 dollars for a cocktail? It better get me buzzed and Botox’d for that.)
When we decided to leave the madness of Manhattan (I think they should actually re-name it Madhattan) we first moved to Westchester, as anybody who first leaves the city does. (Or to Long Island, or Hoboken, FITB with your choice “NY Metro” suburb.) And it was fun, for a bit. It felt like a change from the fast pace of the city. We had closet space! Cars. And we were just a Metronorth ride away from the hustle. So it didn’t feel like we were abandoners. More like suburban explorers.
But Westchester was really just a Band-Aid for us. It was expensive. It was competitive. It meant long commutes into jobs in the city. It meant high taxes. It meant still living above our means. These were not the droids we were looking for.
So we started the “What if” game. The “Where would we go?” game. We played it constantly, sending each other job and MLS listings and articles about living in different places around the country. We talked about Portland. Philadelphia. San Diego. And North Carolina. I don’t know if either of us actually thought we had the balls to do it, but it was fun to talk about the possibilities. We looked at real estate online, picking out dream houses and gawking at the property taxes (“Wait, $2500?? for THE ENTIRE YEAR?!”)
And then the offer came. And shit got real. No one believed we had the guts to actually do it; they were convinced we were just going down to North Carolina for a “weekend getaway.” But that weekend changed the game for us. We zipped around the Triangle, incredibly overwhelmed by it all. We ate at Beasley’s. And La Farm. We checked out the charming Bedford neighborhood in North Raleigh. The big houses on the golf course in Preston. We marveled at how ridiculously clean and well-landscaped the roadways were. (“What, are there like little drones that swoop in and grab trash the second it hits the road?” I wondered.)
We talked to locals. Or, the closest thing we could find to locals, i.e. transplants who had been here for a stretch. Everyone pretty much said the same thing; “It’s just easier here.” I don’t think we really knew what that meant until a year or two later, but it sounded legit.
We visited the grocery store. (“It’s soooo goddamn big!! Have you ever seen a grocery store this large?!”) We had BBQ. (“Hush puppies are my spirit animal. Where have these been all my life?”) We Trulia’d the shit out of this place. (“Baaaaaaaaaabe. Look. At. This. Kitchen.”)
And then we headed to the airport. Confused. Overwhelmed. Impressed. Scared. Reality sinking in. Decisions looming. As we went through security, a guard on the receiving end of the bag x-ray called out to me: “Ma’am, is this one yours?” The New York in me rushed to attention. WTF. Did I leave a bottle of water in there? And now he’s going to go through all my underbits to uncover the culprit, when all I want to do is get to the airport bar and have a drink? “Yeah, it’s mine,” I growled. And I kid you not; this kind, Southern gentleman replied, “Well it looks a little heavy. Let me help you get it off the belt.” And he proceeded to lift my bag off for me, place it down gently, pull the handle up, and wish me a safe flight. It was at this moment I broke into tears. I’m surprised they didn’t whisk me away into an interrogation room right then and there for a full body search, to be honest. Tears were streaming down my face. Hubby was dumbfounded; he hadn’t seen or heard the display. Once we got to the bar, I turned to him, blotchy red face and trembling lip and said, “That’s it. We have to move here. New York has made me mean. New York has made me impatient. New York has made me hate people. I don’t want to live like that. We need to leave.”
And that was it. Jamie agreed. We got back home, told our friends and family, and began to wrap our heads around this moment; the moment we were about to become Southerners.
Fast-forward 3 1/2 years. We are settled. We have made friends. My in-laws have even moved down (from New York, too!) We have found our ‘hood. Our favorite brunch spots. Our date night spots. Our kids are happy. We are happy. I have a big, Southern front porch (with a swing!) Now, it’s not perfect. North Carolina is not without its flaws. But that’s life. There’s no Utopian paradise. But our problems here are fragments of those from our past life. And guess what? We’re finally understanding what they all meant: It IS just easier here.
Originally published at escapingnewyork.com on April 13, 2016.
