No Proofreads. No Edits.

The idea you have or had of New York is stupid.

I’ve just lost 35% of my readership (which brings my total readers down to 4) with that one sentence. But let me explain…

I love New York. I love going up there with my wife on a Thursday afternoon flight. I love waking up on a Friday going to Russ & Daughters. I love walking the Manhattan Bridge and having a drink in DUMBO. I love lining up at 4:30 pm for Attaboy. I love a Saturday taxi to to the organs of Brooklyn to see my family. I love a rooftop joint with my kid sister-in-law staring at the NYC skyling. But most of all… I love getting the fuck out of there Sunday morning.

New York isn’t a beer. It’s Everclear. You take a shot, maybe two, and put the bottle down. You don’t sip on it for years wondering why you look like shit and your liver hurts and no one calls anymore.

The arc of the upperclass southern white person is quite astonishing. I don’t entirely blame Mary Kate and Ashley but where did everyone get the idea that you must go to college in the south just to immediately live off mommy and daddy supplements in New York? When did making $35k in a city that requires $100k become envious?

This soap box is not directed at the bootstrappers. A lot of people have survived, even thrived, that journey into the concrete beast alone. For that, I tip my hat. I see you AKG…. although it’s still an absolute prison.

My favorite cousin stayed an extra year at the University of Georgia. He wanted to get a film minor and pursue a career behind the cameras up in New York. This cousin had always been extremely talented. I remember him doing impressions of disney characters when we were kids making us laugh so hard. He was a go-getter. The kind of guy who deserves it all. Just quality.

I’ll never forget Christmas a handful of months after he moved up to New York. It felt like he was gracing us with his presence now that he had seen the real world (that was my interpretation not his, he was humble and cool as always). The Catholics (thats my family) were all gathered at his parents’ house for our annual 50 person Christmas day birth control protest. I was talking to him in the kitchen and will never forget the first of two incredibly distinct converstaions. That night I simply asked, “How is life in New York?” He replied, “It’s amazing. Every day feels like a vacation.”

I was jealous. Here I was in law school taking a linear path that seemed like I may never break into the wild. At this point I don’t think I had ever even been to New York. I was missing out. I was living the boring life.

Fast forward about four years later. Same cousin. Still the absolute man. Different Christmas. Second convo. Drinking a beer on his back porch, I asked, “How is life in New York?” He replied, “I gotta get the fuck out of here.” I reminded him of his position four years earlier and he couldn’t believe he said that. He went on to explain the shift in perception: struggling to pay rent every month is exhausting, no one here has your back, it’s so cut throat, I feel like the world is progressing in their careers and I am waiting for a big break. He wanted to come home.

This isn’t a New York thing only. New York just gets the smoke because so many people who moved there and stayed for 37 hours cannot stop telling you about it. New York becomes the ultimate trump card because it can easily be followed by a, “You don’t understand how it is up here?” Like you cannot leave on your own.

This is an everywhere thing. I had a brief converastion with my friend on Saturday whose family spends six or so weeks away every summer with extended family and friends on a beach. The trip is in an amazing location with amazing people. A real solid cult feel but the part of the documentary where it sounds awesome before it gets really odd. This place never gets odd. From what I understand, it stays super awesome. But even she said, “We are getting to the point of the trip where it doesn’t feel like vacation anymore.” Routine was setting in. She was doing life just in a different place- no better, no worse. Life overtook the excitement of what is new.

I watch baby girl arrive, mentally, at the end of her vacation and realize she is now just on a trip. It’s setting in. New York’s poetry is disappearing and the piss stench of the subway is no longer a symbol of pride. It’s disgusting. I can tell she is getting tired of $1 pizza slices and doesn’t even notice the statute of liberty on her way to lower Manhattan anymore. The sun sets earlier and everytrhing that was shiny is about to become a meloncholy, winter norm. She wants to go home.

Why do men and women everyday leave New York, LA, Europe and return to Macon, Georgia, the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, or the middle of nowhere Texas? Because they are going home.

The human body longs for home. It longs for the people that make up a home. For baby girl, it’s her mom. She misses her dearly. She isn’t old enough to understand why this is happening. For this season, I think she is getting tired of everything the big life has to offer. She wants home and she wants her mom.

I won’t ask why or try to speculate too much into what she must be feeling on this blog. It breaks my heart though. I am not confused why she misses her mom. I would too if I were her. I am also not jealous, sad, or anything negative. I just hurt because I know she hurts.

One day she will go back to her mom. I selfishly pray that it is when she is in her twenties and she does so on her own terms. There is always the chance it’ll be next year, the year after that, or the year after that. With each passing year, it’ll get harder to leave and harder to let her go. I honestly hope I never have to.

I can talk as much shit as I want, but the truth is, I visit New York multiple times a year and always will. There is no place like it. The idea of New York is stupid, but even the biggest haters cannot deny how great it is. I hope she feels the same way about us if she ever leaves.

#TraeYoungForMayor