Moving to LA, flashback weekend, part 2

I had spent more than a year hating New York City and over six months looking forward to the move; maybe that's why it never occured to me that I might get slightly emotional when the day finally arrived.

I had sold my bed earlier in the week and spent the last five nights sleeping on my trusty aerobed. Since it didn't make sense to schlep the aerobed to LA, I offered it to my aunt who would find a use for it among the four kids and their many friends who spent weekends sleeping over. When I went to drop the bed off, though, the irony hit me like a ton of bricks. My aunt was the whole reason I moved to New York.

After college graduation, I was in complete denial that that part of my life was actually over. I stayed up in my Syracuse apartment as long as I could, or at least until I figured out the next step. I had majored in advertising, so my logical choices were either New York or Boston; I hated the idea of both. But I was dating someone on Long Island and had friends there and in New Jersey, so when my aunt offered me the spare bedroom for a few weeks, it seemed like as good of an idea as any. In my mind it was just another adventure, even though I packed the majority of my belongings as if I knew I would stay.

My aunt allowed me two weeks of play before bringing home the Sunday Times and announcing that I would be looking for a job. We circled a few leads, set up the interviews, and I accepted the first position I was offered only a week or so later. It wasn't until a month later that my younger friends started heading back to school and I really understood that this wasn't a summer job, that my life was no longer measured in semesters and weekends were back to being only two days long. It was a hard fall.

But in the meantime, it became time to find an apartment. At the time, Nick was the only other friend I knew who was ready to move. We checked out a few places across town, but became quickly discouraged at what was offered and at what price. Understanding my frustration (or perhaps getting tired of my now permanent presence), my aunt called her realtor company to see if they had anything available. It turned out, they had an enormous three bedroom a block away that was right in our price range. Nick made some calls, and recruited our common friend Ryan to act as the third roommate, and in October, the three of us began our lives as real New Yorkers.

I lived on 86th street for three years, and I will always remember those years as my best in New York. The apartment was the best, and our social lives were the best. So when I passed off the aerobed and said goodbye to my aunt on that last morning, I became very nostalgic and thankful and sorrowful, and wondered if I would ever feel about LA the way I felt about my life in New York. Something so familiar, it seemed literally part of my blood.

I can say that I do feel that way now. In these last two years, I have come to view my neighborhood with the same degree of comfort and familiarity I felt back then. I feel like I am in the prime of my life, the way I felt after two years in New York, when things were still new enough to seem exciting but I had been around the block enough to know how to handle myself.

Walking down the street that morning, though, back to the subway towards the final hours in my empty apartment, I had no idea what was in store.