"...she's leaving home after living alone for so many years..." ~ Lennon/McCartney
I told you this was going to be a recurring subject, didn't I?
Yup. Looks like this NYC bird is finally going to give this city the bird, fly the coop, leave the nest, live in (gasp!) a smaller town with fewer people. So far, typical response: "How could you EVER leave New York City??" when the question should be "why the hell did it take me so long??"
Well, that's because I used to think most of my 'family' was here, which they are, but aren't...if you know what I mean. After my mother died in 2004, I hung around, not really knowing where to go, what to do...so I stayed until things crystallized and I knew exactly where I stood, and with what and whom I was dealing. Talk about rude awakenings.
Take family off the list of reasons to stay here.
Then I lost my car in 2006, leaving me stuck in a lovely apartment with a terrace, but in a crowded, congested area and not much else...unless you want to walk beneath a NOISY elevated train in a shopping area dense with people, buses, traffic...not my cup of tea. And if you feel like taking a leisurely stroll around here, you have to be a mountain goat because the hills are STEEP and the blocks LONG. You might also consider carrying a baseball bat, or something to protect yourself from all the crazies currently walking among us.
Location, location, location. Next one off the list of reasons to stay.
Add to that my agoraphobic tendencies (being out there without an immediate way to escape the madness ~ lock the doors, roll up the windows, turn on the radio and get home ASAP ~ is terrifying to a person with high anxiety issues.)
"Change of address, change of luck" ~ my late Aunt Yolanda always told me
Excellent reason to add to the list.
So I essentially became a prisoner of my own choice, and now it's getting old. I no longer take any pleasure in anything to do with New York City. Someone said, "You can always go back to visit" and I answered "When I leave this place in the rear-view mirror, it is FOREVER. Why on earth would I want to return to visit a dirty, noisy, congested, rude-ass, nasty, rip-off expensive city like New York?? I'd rather visit a tree in northwestern Canada than ever come back here again."
I've been a loner my entire life, and only recently began feeling truly lonely. I think it's going to be nice to have roommates again; even nicer is being adopted into a real family, be they 'blood relatives' or not. Last but far from least, for the first time in my life, I will live in a private home, not a frigging egg crate-apartment.
"Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends."
~ Jacques Delille
And we all know that "We get by with a little help from our friends..." don't we?
