Living in NYC is definitely different from living in any other city in the US. Tiny tiny apartments, walking everywhere, laundromats, expensive groceries, public transportation every day, no yard…etc.
When we leave town, I sometimes imagine leaving the city. Seeing how easy life is in other places sometimes gives me this fever of having that. I want to go shopping and have good customer service, I want to go to a grocery store and have it be a REAL grocery store-instead of a corner bodega, I want to work normal hours instead of 11+ a day. Sometimes I even want a house…a nice small pretty house with a small yard and a place to put our car. Hearing that a nice beautiful house with a garage and 4 bedrooms costs the same to buy as a 1 bedroom apartment in a scary neighborhood here in the city sometimes makes me just plain annoyed.
I love the city so much, and I’m certainly not ready to leave yet. Jake and I have always been here together, and we have careers, friends..and not to mention Piper Jane’s doctors. They are amazing-world famous doctors that I trust so much. The city is exciting and adventurous and dazzling. There is so much going on all the time, I don’t even have to be creative to have fun. In NYC, the fun is presented to you.
Also, people want to come see you. Two of my best guy friends and their wives are coming to the city in March at different times. My family and friends are always popping in, either for work or vacation or just to see us!
So this might have been a ramble. It might be the winter blues causing spring-moving-house owning fever, but I’m still a city girl.
Do you ever think about moving?
(below, two photos from our trip because the others would upload. Karaoke for Erin’s bday, and brunch with my Jessica)
But if I can’t find good shrimp and grits in the city soon I might change my mind.
(I’ve been trying for 20 minutes to upload the cutest picture of my toothless niece, but no luck. I’ll try again tomorrow.)
That karaoke picture is HYsterical. You look FIERCE like you’re belting out some passionate/emotional song. Then I think I saw through your hair on the screen it was Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar. Then it all made sense! Rock On, Sister! We are Strong!
Jenny Page it IS love is a battlefield! That is MY karaoke song. Also “I have nothing” by whitney houston. That was a crowd pleaser.
Come out to Brooklyn and try the Shrimp and Grits at Brooklyn Star. Pretty dang good.
I think about moving to NYC all the damn time because it’s glamorous and exciting and amazing. I live in a 5 bedroom bungalow with four kids, a husband and a dog. 3400 sq. ft, big yard and a place (or ten) to park my car and I crave what you have. For a time anyway. So……..
I’m hoping I’ll be able to move to NYC in just 2.5 short years. Having lived in Alabama all my life, I’m craving a big city (less rednecks wouldn’t be too bad either, ha). Since I’ll be finishing up med school in a couple years, hopefully I’ll be headed to NYC as a doctor very shortly…until then, I’ll keep reading yours and others’ blogs about the big apple.
totally dream of moving somewhere else. i mostly like where i live. close to the city, close to the coast. but in the dead of winter (except this one) i usually dream of santa barbara. that’s sort of my ‘perfect locale’ dream.
and i dream in another life i lived in nyc with a view of central park too on my terrace. not a porch, but a terrace. or a veranda if you will. monies! mmhmm.
I grew up near Sacramento, lived in Portland , OR for a year and a half, lived in AZ for 3-1/2 years and now I’m stuck in UT. Only til my husband graduates and then I badly want to move back to AZ. I love the weather there – cold and snow are not my friends. It’d be super cool to visit NY – I’ve never been there but I have friends who live there that keep inviting me to come!
I can’t wait to move. I am stuck in grad school and can’t wait to graduate. I have been living in the same place all most my entire life. I want to be somewhere warm where it doesn’t snow. The snow makes me go bonkers. I have a little house with a yard and I want to be in the city. I want to work for a real company and make real money instead of living in a place where people with masters degrees work at WalMart. It’s kind of funny how we all want something different then what we have. I love reading your blog and about all your adventures in New York. You are brave to move there. You are beautiful and successful and have everything I want from life.
I think about moving all the time, but I’m thinking about it in the opposite way of you. I grew up in a subarb of Portland, Oregon, went to college at Oregon State (just an hour and a half from home) and after college I moved to a little apartment in Portland’s trendy NW district. City living, even in a little city like PDX, has it’s challenges (laundry and parking are annoying for me too!) but I love being so close to the action.
Sometimes, though, I want more action, a bigger city, THE city: NYC. Lately I daydream a lot about moving out there. Could I really be brave enough to leave everything behind, and start a new life 3,000 miles away? Maybe. I’m visiting New York in July for a friend’s bachelorette party, and if I stil love it as much as I think I do, I might have to make this dream a reality.
i know how you feel.. nyc can really get you down sometimes when you start looking at real estate prices in cute little towns where you can’t hear your neighbors screaming at each other (hello, last night).
as for shrimp and grits (my favorite):
you should try pies ‘n thighs in williamsburg. i’m from charleston, sc and the they aren’t anything compared to the ones i find at home, but the best i’ve had in the city yet!
also, ‘craftbar changes around their shrimp and grits a bit, but last time i went they were delicious!
i daydream about it. i already have a house in a portland neighborhood. a tiny yard. i’m not as CITY as you, but still sometimes i daydream about living in a suburb where all the grocery stores are nice and the schools are good. and sometimes i even daydream about living in a rural area like i did when i grew up, catchin’ frogs and fishin’ in the lake and playing in the sand dunes by the ocean.
and yep, the winter always makes me get all thinky like this
I live in Buenos Aires (my mom says it’s like New York in the 70s… meaning dirty and dangerous and maybe exciting?). We live in tiny spaces and have fake grocery stores too. When I get outside the city, I think… I caaaaaaaaaan breathe again and omg I need a garden. And some quiet. And how I miss the stars. And then I think about having to get in the car to go anywhere and never seeing my husband because the commute would be hours and hours. And there’s no delivery out there in the boonies. And I’d never see my friends. And I can walk everywhere and if it’s too far to walk, I can take the subway. And I love my tiny little apartment way up in the sky. It’s so safe and cozy and I know we’ll never leave. We have everything here we need.
I loooove NYC….but to visit, not live. I’m afraid I’m not ‘city’ enough to live there full time, but I think it’s awesome that you are. I’m a stones throw from the beaches around Charleston, and shrimp n grits is my middle name. Y’all come visit any time!
Born in SLC valley, bought my first home in SLC valley, bought my second home ten minutes south of the first one. Whenever I travel, I think there are beautiful, exciting, adventurous places in the world and then, after about 10 days, I just want home. Nothing in the world feels like home but here and I will never leave. Also, people complain about cold and snow but your body starts to crave the change in seasons – we had a late indian summer last year and my body literally hurt waiting for the chance to put away the yardwork and bicycles and hibernate for a few months.
p.s. just thought about it some more and home is home because it’s where my family is – my parents, all my siblings, aunts, cousins, uncles. No amount of money, fame, adventure, etc. has ever been worth not seeing the people I love almost every week. Not being judgey at all, just realizing that is a big part of the reason why I stay.
I lived in NYC from the time I was a freshman at NYU, at 18, until I moved to NJ when I was 42. During the vast majority of that time, I swore I would never ever leave. After our first child, we were still really happy being in the city. We had a two-bedroom apartment, not huge, but okay, that my husband bought when he was young, and the block was mostly filled with drug dealers, but by the time I was living there had cleaned up considerably. We then were able to buy the adjoining studio, so had 3 bedrooms, which was pretty awesome. Then I had twins. Suddenly, living in the city was so much harder. I couldn’t just hop in a cab, I couldn’t take them on the subway alone, and even with my husband around, it was really hard. Child care was soooo expensive, and likely private school tuition was scary. I realized that, when I was not at work, I mostly stayed in a short radius around my apartment.
We bought a car, but street parking was totally impractical in my neighborhood, especially because I suck at parallel parking, so we got a garage, but it cost a fortune.
Anyway, my firm asked me if I would move to our NJ office, and I starting looking at houses. When I realized that we could sell our NY apartment and buy a big old Victorian house with room for live-in inexpensive childcare a half-hour train ride from the city, we did it. At first, I dreaded it, used to fantasize about winning the lottery and moving back to the city, but after a while I realized that I no longer had those fantasies, that when I imagined winning the lottery, I pictured finishing my basement and putting in a pool.
I work in the city again, so I’m here every day, and I never really wish we still lived here. I love my town, which is very racially and economically diverse, and is mostly filled with people who have moved there from Brooklyn or the Upper West Side, or from some other urban area, I love my neighbors, I love my spacious house and all the beautiful historic houses near me, I love that my kids can run across the street to play with their friends and play in the backyard. I still think NYC is the greatest city in the world, and I loved all my years living there, and I hope my kids will live there in their 20′s and maybe 30′s, but I love the life we have now.
Maybe when my kids are grown, and I retire, we’ll get a place in NYC again.
You are so stylish! I want to move to the city SO BADLY. I say “the city” but really I guess any city would be ok. But I can’t right now with my school/work/living situation.
But I do love to read about your city adventures and I’m glad you’re taking advantage of it while you live there!
The best of both worlds is to rent in the city and own outside. Many of my friends in NYC have recently bought weekend homes on the shore in Jersey (the nice part like Asbury Park … not ‘THE SHORE’). They get the beauty and fun of Chelsea during the week and a less than hour train ride to a cute little cottage near the sea. Best idea ever!!
I moved to Boston almost 24 years ago from LA and I’m not moving again. I love it here. And I love my cool condo (in a converted high school).
City girl here too (Chicago). I think the only things I ever really miss ab non-city living is being able to easily drive places (I never can get Wendy’s here, bc they only have a few and I’m never around them), and real grocery stores (i REALLY miss Kroger…so much cheaper and better!). Other than that though, I mainly think about how BORING suburb living would be!
When I was in NYC I thought I could live there but I think it would be difficult to downsize as far as I would have to for what I could afford. Is it easier to upsize? I did dream of living somewhere else though and I thought it would be the US but as it is me and Mr M moved to Sydney at Christmas from the UK. We’ve downsized because city living requires that but it is a great experience I would encourage everyone to try at least once in their lives. I’ve learnt alot about me, about Mr M and about what we both need and want in life. At the end of the day what is the worse that could happen? You press the undo button and go home. But you will have tried and you will always have the experience. xx How’s Pip? It’s been a while since a photo . . . just sayin’ ….
Working 11+ hours a day isn’t just an NYC thing, unfortunately! I think it must be an American thing. We’re expected to be workaholics!
yessss. I grew up in a big city overseas, but live in Nashville with my husband now. I keep going back and forth between loving how chill it is here, to dying for something more. I have friends who want to come visit from glamourous cities all over the world and it makes me feel bad that they want to spend money to fly to little old Nashy…
BUT we are buying a house. Which we could never ever afford to in a big city. So, to everything you said: yes, yes, agreed, and I’m on the other end of that spectrum.
I hear you sister. I definitely think life got a bit easier when moving from city living (Chicago, but still) here to Texas. No more parking your car two blocks away from your house because you couldn’t find a spot. No more dragging groceries up three flights of stairs to your brownstone. You actually have an idea of what “stuff” you own because they’re not crammed away in storage. The downside is, of course, that I miss the city. =)
i daydream about moving INTO the city! let’s just trade for a minute to get it out of our systems! there’s a place here with THE BEST shrimp & grits! my #1. and what else was i gonna tell you……….
OH! i love the karaoke picture.
p.s. what’s your go-to karaoke song? we do this karaoke night once a month and i need a signature song. my friends make fun of me and call me shy ronnie (SNL, youtube it) so my top secret plan is to find a song, perfect it, and one day rock their faces off so they’ll all apologize to me and beg my forgiveness.
I was traumatized when I left NYC. I love everything about that city. it’s such an inspiring, exciting, thrilling place to live. That being said however, I moved to LA because my husband was an actor and this is where he needs to be, and I am so grateful I did. I’m not going to lie, it took me 2 years not hate this town, and then another 2 where I was kinda ambiguous about it. Now, I can’t imagine living anywhere else. First of all, I’m sick and some of the best hospitals, care and specialists are here and secondly, the weather, the space and the activities the state has to offer are amazing. We have an adorable house, with a yard and a garage and an office and a living and play room for the same price as my one bedroom in the West Village. We can be outside all the time and there is so much to do in California. You could write and do hair here. Jake could do his photography. Piper could have great doctors and you could be closer to her if you lived in Westwood or even the Valley. I go to UCLA to see my specialist all the time and it’s like 30 minutes from Studio City. Less if you go at an off time.
I understand the dream of wanting more. Of needing more hours in the day. Of feeling like you are doing so many things that you’re exhausted and everything is suffering a little bit. It’s a terrible feeling and I’m sorry you’re dealing with it.
I’m sure you won’t leave NYC. The logistics alone are probably too overwhelming and you’d miss your peeps, but LA is lovely, the weather helps with perking you up, the hospitals are great and close and there’s a wanna be starlet every 5 minutes that needs pictures and her hair done did.
Just saying.
Hope you’re well.
Say hi to NYC for me.
xo leigh
What I reeeeeeally want to know is, what are you singing?!