Wherever You Go, There you are

New York City has always been a dream city of mine. I love it here, and every time I land from a vacation, work trip or trip abroad, it feels like my heartbeat lives here. This city feels like home. However, NYC is also filled with three Es: excitement, expectation, and excess. The amount of excitement here can be overwhelming. There are incredible opportunities to go to pop-ups, parties, concerts, and more. FOMO is permanent, and it’s exhausting. I feel guilty for going out because half the time I don’t have enough money to be spending on these exciting endeavors, and I feel guilty staying in when I can hear the world happening outside my window (and I live in the LES so that world is partying 24/7.) Then there’s the second E: expectation. So many people who choose to live here are on a mission: whether it’s corporate or creative. They come to New York because they have a dream of “making it big” and they’ll stop at nothing to get it. That means we have finance dudes working their cute little butts off ’til 11pm and then partying so hard they can’t see straight Thursday-Sunday. We have actors and actresses waking up for 5am casting calls and bartending until 2am to make rent. And we have entrepreneurs who are never truly “off duty,” working and networking everywhere they go. All of these can make a seemingly average 20-something feel like a lazy pile of poo if they’re just not quite sure what they want to do with their lives yet. Or they’re on a path they are just not quite sure about. Finally, we have excess. Every street is littered with chalk signs for happy hour deals, $99 cent pizza, and pics of the most Instagram-worthy foodie trends clutter our news feeds daily. There’s actually a place around the corner from my apartment that serves whole cookie sandwiches in the straw of their milkshakes. And it’s not just food, drugs can be commonplace and drinking is as much a business/networking interaction as it is an indulgence with friends. 

So, despite my love of this city, when things are darker in my mind I find myself fantasizing about running away. When I was alone in Hawaii last spring I was standing over the ocean and thought about how I could just throw my phone in there, empty my bank account and go somewhere new. Maybe be a beach bum and like eat from my own garden or some shit. When I don’t wanna be “me” anymore, I dream of going somewhere I can start over and completely reinvent everything about me. But then I am reminded of some of the wisest words I’ve ever heard: “wherever you go, Lauren, there you are.” Running away doesn’t change who I am now, and it certainly doesn’t change the past that got me here. Your environment does not define who you are, and fantasizing about how your life would be different somewhere else is just that: a fantasy. It’s a way your mind plays tricks on you to tell you that the grass would be greener somewhere else. Try looking inward before you decide to change your location to fix your problems, because you are the only thing you can’t truly shake.