the cost of living in nyc

I mean this metaphorically and literally.

It really is my last day in NYC. True to form, I've left a whole lot until the very last minute, and chosen to complicate and confuse myself about pretty much all my relationships and even what I'm going to Scotland to do. And just how long I'll be there. 


I remember very clearly the day I moved to New York five years ago. I remember a couple of key people asking me, "what if you don't find what you're looking for? what if you don't find it and have to come home?" Which to me, at the time, felt like code for "what if you fail?" And, while I may actually never find what I'm looking for, if you know me, you know how much I care for being presented with that challenge.


So, as freeing and as purposeful as this move is, I am still weighing its cost. Because I have almost never let go of anything. Any dream, any love, any person, any feeling. I have hung on to every moment in an effort to just keep something. To escape how quickly it moves on to the next thing. 


To voluntarily fly myself (admitted-- this has always been one of my own defense mechanisms-- that whole moving target business, if I leave first, I'm in control? Even if it means I pack very heavy bags from taking everything and everyone with me?) now somehow, with NYC in particular, feels like I'm giving up. Or maybe that, while some of my reasons are noble, others are simply that I'm too tired to do this city by myself anymore. Or this poor. I don't feel like that everyday, but many days. All but a few relationships end up feeling like commodities around here (had an excellent conversation about this yesterday as it pertains to networking) and I (stewing in my thoughts by myself) end up jumping to a lot of conclusions about people. 


Something about what I'm doing  in Scotland feels more like emotional green living. Or clean living. It's cost-effective, cleaner, and leaves a smaller carbon footprint on my heart. A part of me simply cannot afford to live in New York anymore. But more times in the last two weeks that at any other point, I've fast forwarded to to the moment I come BACK to NYC. More than any other time in the process, I've thought, "Well maybe I'll only be gone a year...." 


Maybe the truth of my sadness or my fright or my regret (thinking about that Franzen entry: freedom, mistakes) comes from this knowing that I am both aware of my main life lesson: (negative capability!), understand its awe-inspiring beauty, and yet almost without exception cannot implement into my feelings. Actions? Sure. But not feelings. (oh, cronin: "bravery is easy; it's hope that is hard.")