Letters to the Editor
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LW ,it's all about what's going on inside of you.
Ignore all of the advice to go to all of the local attractions. meh.
I have found in my moves across North America
and Europe, it's about how one feels in a place.What part of your personality is enhanced or aggravated by a certain location.
(after all ,everywhere you go,LW,you take yourself,good and bad,with you). In some cities ,I found I was more outgoing,light hearted.It had nothing to do with the ocean or palm trees)
It was an intangible, Je ne se quoi? Where as,other cities brought out the more assertive side of me.If I had trouble getting food I liked,or problems commuting to work or school,I was more apt to be on guard,somewhat defensive.Which affects how one lives and moves through and around people.
If ,after an allotted period of time,you
have not felt positive differences to your interior feelings .Real improvements ,not visits to attractions,as if on holiday.Then I would say head East. You will not be running away from something. You will be moving toward the home of your heart.
Good luck.
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GO HOME RIGHT NOW!!!
Cary is right about his advice but not for the right reasons.
If you go back now, you will be happy to return to NY and you will spend the whole life in this city. You will be happy living at the place in the world that is more like you (of course, that it is not entirely true, but happiness does not depend on truth but on perception). So you will be happy.
The problem if you stay in California is not that you won't adapt, it's that you WILL. Cultural shock will eventually disappear.
Without realizing, you will be changing to adapt to your new environment and NY will change too. So when you made the decision to return to your idealized New York, you will realize that it is not the same thing (friends have moved on, people have changed his way of life and so do you, because NY and you have evolved in different ways). You will realize that you don't belong any more to NY. You will be split up with your family (NY) and your life (California). And when you are older, it will be harder to change.
This is the same thing that happened to me. I am a Spanish guy (from Europe) who has been living nine years in El Salvador (Central America). When I have finally returned to Spain, I have realized that I don't belong any more to Spain and I terribly miss El Salvador. I am preparing my return to this country to stay the rest of my lifetime but I will have to be far from my parents and sisters. So I will always be splitted.
So go back home and you will have no regrets. You will think that NY is the best place on Earth and you will be happy
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Get outa suburbia...
I agree with Emmanuel Gearbox, get out of suburbia, and into a city that has a pulse and isn't threatened by individuality. If you like California, try L.A. or even San Francisco. If you want a rush, try Chicago. Why limit yourself to the USA. If you got the money, move to London. Anywhere but suburbia.
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California Culture? Oxymoron?
I too moved here from NYC--first to San Francisco and then to Walnut Creek, an East Bay suburb. However for lots of reasons, I've stayed 12 years! The first several years I spent wondering, several times a day, what I had said that turned somebody off! Even the simplest conversations were bizarre...and continue to be! Ideas and expressing opinions in what seem to me direct and clear ways are often perceived as "aggressive" and "intense" by so many of the people I've met in California.
In so many of my daily experiences here in the East Bay, I feel more like an observing social scientist than an actual participant! Just last night I was out and about and was told I need to "loosen up" and literally "let my hair down", (I had it in a ponytail), by a 50ish woman with unreal and huge breast implants and long fake 'french' manicured nails, whose friend was sharing the details of her recent Brazilian wax! After asking me "Where do you live at?", to which I responded, "I don't live AT anywhere." She said, "Whaddya mean, you live all over?", before proceeding to enquire about my pubic grooming practices! HONESTLY!
I could go on, but why bother. I am definately a fish out of water here among the many who seem to believe that the point of this whole experience of living is only to pack as much "FUN" as you can into it. But what to expect in a culture where people derive their self worth from the amount of granite countertops they can cram into a kitchen--or where puns are thought funnier than a dry acerbic wit. What's a girl to do??
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reply to lost NY
I've lived in CA all my life, but definitely see where you are coming from....California IS almost too blase...we are definitely more layed back...we will try almost anything once, then move on...we're quick, but not too structured...if the driving alone doesn't kill us, nothing will...we don't have the stimulation from NY, we don't have ALL the good food from NY, and I think it is harder too make friends in CA....that said, I personally could never move back east because of the SNOW!! Forget about it...snow and ice are not good..if I want that I can go to the mountains....I think being a writer you would be happier going back to NY, there is nothing more to write about CA except new murder trials and the escapades of the movie stars...Good luck....
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the real SD
I feel compelled to add a little more in response to those who equate San Diego with suburbia and Republicans in swim shorts. Maybe you've never been here, or maybe you passed through as a tourist. Or maybe you left and having not understood why exactly, find rationales now to justify your flight. Or last, maybe you simply see the world through past-due stereotypes. Whatever.
For the record.
San Diego is not suburban. Not super dense, but come on. (Put one way, in the 2000 census, there were 5 zips here denser than 10,000/sq mi, totaling 250k people. There'd be more today, and more again if you could subtract canyon and coastal land area.)
San Diego is not Republican. Dems have a better than 5 point registration lead.
San Diego is a part of the So Cal culture, but happily lacking LA/OC's unblinking status consciousness. It's also Californian without the bay area's navel gazing, and west coast without Seattle's need to prove itself and apologize afterward. It's a major immigrant city, but less segregated than both LA and NYC (believe it or not). In fact, it'd be nearly perfect if it weren't for all the other things that are really wrong with it.
So, for those telling the LW that "it's San Diego"... maybe for him it is, or maybe not. But check your assumptions. You might have us confused with someplace else.