★ The City

Looking South from Empire State Building

It’s easy to forget about our past lives. If you’re pushing yourself to new heights, new adventures and new skills, you of yesterday should be distant and nearly irrelevant.

Elizabeth and I spent an evening in Washington DC catching up with friends she went to school with. There was dining, drinking, dancing and storytelling. It was a nice evening and I was the designated driver. We arrived in DC around 5 and finally went to sleep at 3AM. To be on foot in DC visiting U and H street venues, it was a close resemblance to Polk street in San Francisco. There were kids our age and they were dressed to impress. There were taxis and street performers and beggars and I was among peers.

It was really strange.

San Francisco was only 1.5 years ago but I’m out of touch with drink prices and the realities of Saturday nights in a city. I wasn’t uncomfortable but things were crazy. We all shared stories of city-life except most of my stories felt like a long time ago like it was decades ago. The scary excitement of The Tenderloin surpassed the insanity of DC at midnight but there were similarities as there should be in any big city. I laughed and retold these stories that have appeared many times on this blog but my mind was pondering and sitting still. I wasn’t entertained with these stories.

I was spending an evening with a couple that, combined make more than me but they were living in an apartment above a bar and facing a busy street lined with stop lights. The city was noisy and busy and taxis were honking and speeding past. I got a little stressed out. It’s not anxiety or an overwhelming feeling but it was a feeling that my mind wasn’t happy and would have rather been somewhere else, somewhere quiet and somewhere where I can hear the birds chirp and the wind howling.

I can see the appeal of city-life. For me, San Francisco was something that came along with the technology jobs based there. I wanted to work at a great job and be 15 minutes from a cabin in the woods. That’s what I have now but if I lost this job, there aren’t 200 more to replace it across 50 startups that are competing with each other for talent. In DC, amidst the noise and action are companies who are hiring and are demanding of new cheap talent and old seasoned talent. I’d like to think I’m somewhere in the middle but that apartment was so tiny!

It’s funny to laugh about the all night coffee houses that are, at times, full of homeless people or the fact that the best bars are in neighborhoods that are gentrified and sort of run down. I appreciate that awesomeness of getting a slice of pizza after 8PM but along with that comes a range of other issues like public transit, high fuel costs and living expenses. The woman with us was recently mugged and it wasn’t a show-stopper where the conversation remains with her for half an hour. We listened but then moved on because that’s what happens in cities…you get mugged and then go back to living life.

I don’t really think that either way of life is better than the other. From my cabin to the big city with suburbia right in the middle, each have their advantages. City people come to my cabin to unwind and I go to cities to experience the beauty of a pizza after midnight and walking to a bar. Each have their place.

The problem I’m having is that I can’t decide which one I want. I’ve never been happier at my current place. It’s been the best year of my life but city life is fun as well. Where do I belong in this mix of various living conditions? At 25, I have time to decide but then again, I’m already 25. It’s time to choose so I can settle in to one place and be sure that it’s where I should be.

I may be an hour from a Starbucks…but I don’t have to wait for a bus or walk to the grocery store.