Leaving New York City
This is an excerpt from our Substack newsletter, Dear City Girl …
written by Elena Chen
This is, for the first time in more than a decade, my ode to the city where I got a taste of adulthood, but did not want to adult in.
Dear New York,
You are cool. In a I don’t want to be your friend, I know I’m too good for you, sort of aloof, uncaring because of an inherent awareness of your value. You have the hippest, trendiest, and most innovative spots for food and art and culture. You also have tradition, mom & pops and history. You have great views and beautiful architecture and gorgeous waterfronts. But being too close to you inevitably stresses me out. Why is everything so loud where you are? There are a million things going on at the same time and no one stops for anything or anyone. I’m also never going to feel like I am enough around you. I don’t have enough money to hang out with you or do the cool things you offer or even go to the museums you have because you have really expensive taste. When we used to be more geographically bound before the internet as it is today, you had such an edge with your amalgamation of talents and history. But we are no longer geographically confined in the same way. We can find talent elsewhere. Also, your subway smells funky and only seems to work when it wants to. I don’t feel safe at night even though I’m surrounded by bright advertising pushing some perfume in minimal packaging too expensive for me to actually buy but I am made to desperately want in order to feel good enough for you. I’m also surrounded by people at night but they’re the ones who scare me. You are so great in your own right but being friends just doesn’t make me happy. I’d rather stop by, on rare occasions, and say hello. I love your energy but I can’t really be around it all the time.
I feel like I owe so much to you because I got my first bank card, phone sim and access to Google Maps when we met. I went to therapy for the first time and I discovered the beauty of snowstorms. I still hold such an appreciation for good food and aesthetics because you taught me so much about what that is like. I live in a different city now that also has good food and aesthetics but people speak a different language. I don’t fit in here either but everyone makes me feel like I’m good enough. I don’t understand a lot that is happening around me, but I somehow feel like I’m going to have a good time here. There is also a river here but we aren’t surrounded by water and it is much, much smaller. I am able to find a bakery on every corner and people love sitting out on the street. The streets are also much smaller. I feel less small here.
