Letters to the Editor
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You can't go home again
Maybe you need to leave San Diego, but you shouldn't go home just yet. You've been gone less than a year!
When I was 21 I left the midwest for a year in Alaska. I spent most of that year thinking "what the hell have I done?" Absolutely everything was different than the life I'd known. It took forever for me to make friends, because nobody thought I'd stick around. Slowly I started getting involved in the community and found a job that fit. I ended up staying for six years, and it took about four of those years to get used to life there. I don't regret a minute of it.
However, I knew that I wasn't ready to commit to small-town Alaska life forever, so I moved to New York City three months ago. Total culture shock! I love the vibrance of the City, but I get homesick. I have panic attacks every couple of weeks. Everybody's so busy that it's hard to find people to spend time with. I miss nature and fresh wild-caught salmon. Sometimes all I want is something familiar. I'm cobbling together a life, but I still feel entirely at sea.
But I know that I made the right choice. My life had gotten too easy and I wanted something new. I still have no idea where "home" really is. I figure I've got plenty of time to sort that out.
This is the time to push yourself. New York will always be there if you want to go back. Give it more time. You followed your gut to the West Coast, and your gut told you for a reason. You won't regret knowing different people and landscapes, even if they aren't the most comfortable for you. Who wants comfort? We're young!
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Idaho by the Sea
First off, who the hell has the kind of money to flit between one of America's most expensive cities to ANOTHER one of its most expensive cities and then consider moving BACK? And you have a lot of friends in jail? I know this is way off base, but that says "drug dealer" or "crooked stock broker" to me. Ha ha, just kidding (ar am I?). I know people in San Diego, lifelong residents, and they all refer to it as "Idaho by the Sea," which should tell you something about the atmosphere and state of mind. Like others have suggested, you probably just moved to the wrong city. You seem to not be held back by money (what, you got some kinda inheritance or something? And if you're a highly paid professional then why are you so helpless that you gotta ask a guy with X's for eyebrows for advice?), so check out LA or San Francisco, as has been suggested, if you're indepdently wealthy try Santa Barbara. Try Oakland, I understand that city has a gritty, dangerous edge to it, maybe they'll appreciate your No Work City attitude. Still, California is overcrowded and becoming more overcrowded every day and I don't see how that place can last much longer (but don't forget, people have been saying this forever), so maybe it was a stupid move after all.
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Peckerwood
First off, who the hell has the kind of money to flit between one of America's most expensive cities to ANOTHER one of its most expensive cities and then consider moving BACK?
Not that hard, esp. when you're only 23 and still living like a student. Plane fares are relatively cheap and you can always crash on someone's couch until you get situated. Los Angeles is full of people who show up with next to no money and somehow manage to find a job and a place to live. Same in NYC.
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LW -- Get evaluated for PTSD ASAP
You saw several shootings up close? That is enough trauma to give you a case of PTSD! That can definitely cause it.
I think everything in your letter hints at this possibility.
One of the symptoms of PTSD is avoidance -- you'll do anything to avoid places or situations that remind you of your trauma, at any cost.
Your difficulty socializing in your new location, and the fact that other people find you difficult to get along with also support this potential diagnosis.
If I were you, I would see some kind of professional and have an evaluation for PTSD, just in case this is at the root of your desire to avoid New York despite the glaring fact that this is where you belong and thrive.
PTSD can be treated. If you have it, then it's important to get it treated, so that it doesn't dominate your life and control all the decisions you make in the future.
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give it a chance
i'm a native new yorker who spent most of my childhood a small east coast town and then lived in manhattan for 11 years as a young adult. i always felt like an out-of-towner in nyc, even though my family had been there for generations. even the cabbies would say, "you're not from around here are you--you're too nice."
i desperately wanted out of nyc. i felt it was making me too hard. i felt i'd have to kill off my ability to see and feel to stay there. i made a plan and relocated to the western u.s., where i had spent quite a few summers over the years. i thought i was making a well-considered move. after all, i'd already made quite a few friends in my new town. but in the first week, one of my friends complained that i was being rude to the waitress who was serving us. this shocked me! rude? how?
i've been out here now for 15 years, and while i have adapted and it fits a side of me that can't be expressed in nyc--it's definitely a much nicer physical environment--i miss my friends and the social culture of new york more all the time, and recently have seriously considered moving back.
lw, i went through and continue to go through what you describe about dealing with people. thin-skinned and passive aggressive is a perfect description! i mean, i just can't be wholly myself here, or people become offended. you can't have honest conversations. people don't say what they really think. it still drives me up the wall. i have lived a number of other places as well, and traveled most of the country, and in my opinion, this is true just about everywhere outside of new york, but definitely increases the further away from new york you go.
in new york, nobody takes offense in the least at what i say. at my jobs there, all that mattered was my performance, not how much people liked me. people liking you was really irrelevant. the standard was excellence. elsewhere, the standard appears to be mediocrity. i was often told to spend time every day socializing with people instead of working! and performing to the standard of excellence i learned in new york just alienates and threatens co-workers and bosses.
best of all, in nyc i dont' have to watch every other word i say. it's much more relaxing.
unfortunately, the stress and the noise and the grime and the fast past and the multitude of choices in new york--i found then and still find overwhelming. i last about three weeks there before i collapse and have to go home.
i suggest you go back to visit nyc for a few weeks, then go home to san diego. see how that feels. sometimes going away and coming back is the first time you feel that a new home is really home at last.
personally, i don't think any other west coast cities are a significant enough improvement. i've spent extended periods of time in LA, SF, and seattle. it's the same problem, culturally speaking. the social norms are radically different from new york in all those places. especially in california, the superficiality of social discourse drives me totally up the wall. it's just as true in san franscisco and LA. i seriously considered living in san francisco and visited for several months, but as beautiful as it is, the conversations at parties convinced me i would never fit in. same in LA. seattle is quite a bit better, but then the weather is not so nice most of the year.
you will adapt if you stay. you'll probably never feel like a native, or wholly understood, but there can still be very good things in your life. and you can always go back to new york if you decide to.
personally, i'm thinking i'll just sublet an apartment in new york every spring and fall, just a month each season. that will give me my "fix" and i'll be a lot less restless and more accepting of the alien culture and physical amenities back home the rest of the time.
so, i'd advise you to stay and try to adapt. go back to new york for a visit to remind yourself of why you left. there are no perfect places.