MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. How You Know It’s Time To Leave Your City OCT. 9, 2013 By BRIANNA WIEST A little while back I wrote an article in which I *gently* poked fun at the whole “I’m just a small town girl in the big city!” thing that people are always really proud of for some reason. And the responses were… interesting. People wanted to see me write about what it means to want to leave your city, when you’re not proud of it like everybody thinks you should be. When the life that is ideal for other people just isn’t for you. And so I decided to do just that, because unbeknownst to them, that is exactly what I’m doing right now. Everyone wants to know why the hell I’m leaving, and really only because the place I’m going to isn’t New York. Why would you ever leave the city?! They ask. And then get on my case for all the reasons why my life will be subpar now that I’m not in one of the biggest, loudest cities of the world. I just can’t help but think to myself that it’s very interesting, how people think they know what’s best for a person, and how ingrained societal ideals of what dreams and goals and success should look like is. It’s interesting that, when it’s time for someone to carve their own path that doesn’t revolve around what will make other people appeased and comfortable, it’s assumed that there’s either something wrong with them or there’s something they aren’t realizing about their decision. There’s nothing wrong with me. I realize my decision completely. My plan was to spend time in New York pursuing my career (in editing, which is what I thought I wanted) and then to return to the place I’m moving to now. I decided to skip over the part where I spend my 20s miserable solely for the pursuit of monetary/social success [as in, a three figure annual salary and a fancy title]. In fact, I gave up doing anything in my day-to-day life, career included, that I didn’t enjoy or was passionate about. Of course, that’s a work in progress, as everything is in life, but the important part is that I decidedly lost the old ideas of what I thought success and happiness meant, and in the process, I found exactly those things. And I’m extraordinarily fortunate, because my job goes where I do, and I can go where I choose. I decided to take advantage of that. Sometimes you just grow out of places. Sometimes you just aren’t made for what everybody else is. And sometimes you stay because the alternative is a little intimidating, especially when you don’t know anybody where you’re going, and everybody is telling you to stay, and that you’re silly for choosing what you’re choosing. But you feel like you want to go anyway, and so you become trapped in that limbo. The people who commented and wrote to me seemed to be at that place. If there’s anything you have to walk away with from this little rant, it’s that wanting to go is enough. My beloved, beautiful role model Cheryl Strayed said that in a column she wrote. Wanting to go is enough. This applies to relationships and jobs and living spaces and roommates and career paths and majors and the sticky bar you find yourself at on a Friday night. You are cheating yourself out of bigger, better, happier things by staying in what’s known and comfortable. I’m not saying uprooting your life and probably finding a new job and making new friends all while being subject to people’s criticisms is easy. I’m saying it’s important. And I hope you do go. Because if some part of you won’t stop nagging to be somewhere else, you’ll follow it eventually. It’s just a matter of whether you do it now or later.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:32:34 +0000
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