i moved

On September 10th i moved to Brooklyn, New York. It’s the biggest non-obvious decision I’ve made in my life. A lot of people have very kindly asked me about the move, so here are some answers to what I get asked the most. (Also, I just have some things I need to say to someone.)

First off

THANK YOU so much to everyone who helped me through this move. Thank you to my whole family especially mom and dad. Thank you to Nico for being my roommate, thank you to Yuval for introducing me to people, thank you to everyone in the city who’s invited me to hang out with them. Thank you to my friends and coworkers back home for being sooo supportive and nice to me when you found out I was moving. Thanks Seattle for making me and thanks New York for treating me quite alright so far.

What’s the general situation?

I expect to live in Brooklyn until August 2025. Then I’ll either stay in New York or move back to Seattle, I figure. There’s nowhere besides New York or the Seattle area that I want to live right now, though I guess you never know where life might take you.

Because I left MAQ at the end of September, I’m now applying for jobs in tech. It’s a tough market right now, so I might take a non-tech job by the end of the year to keep from tapping too far into my savings. But I hope that won’t be necessary.

Why did I move?

I felt like I was stagnating, and I didn’t know how to fix it while staying in Seattle. When I made the choice, in early July, it felt like I’d been living the same week over and over for months. I worried I’d wake up someday and realize my twenties passed by in a flash, my youth spent repeating that same week. The routine¹ had a lot going for it, but I had some key frustrations I felt I should be able to overcome:

• I felt like I still hadn’t found enough of “my people”. I liked my friends / acquaintances, but for example I still didn’t know anyone in Seattle who I wanted to be my my roommate, or who I really wanted to date.² And I didn’t know anyone near me who really “got” some of my nerdier interests.
• My job took a lot of my time, and I felt I ought to be able to find more fulfilling and interesting (or at least less time-consuming) work.

So when my longtime close friend Nico asked me to room with them in New York, I thought it would be a good chance to shake up my life, and surely in such a large city I could find people I really resonated with. I was worried I might struggle to meet people, but because I have two close friends in the city, I figured I could bootstrap a social network off of them.

The timing wasn’t quite what I hoped—it would have been nicer to move in January, after enjoying the holiday season at home, and having saved up more money so I’d have a longer runway before needing a new job. But the call to adventure came in July, without the chance to delay for long, so I chose the bolder, more “narratively correct” path and hoped it would work out.

How has it been?

It’s hard to say yet whether I made the right decision. I still miss Seattle, for sure. My social life (especially with coworkers) got a lot more lively in late July and August, after the lease was already signed, which made it extra sad to leave. And it was sad! I cried a lot on my last day in Seattle, and I never cry. There are a lot of things to like, though. Living with a close friend is great, our apartment is a great living space, the neighborhood is nice, my new climbing gym is nice, and I enjoy having the time to cook for myself, explore, relax, work on projects, play sports more often, etc.

Honestly, my situation is not as nice right now as it was at home. Most of the benefits of the move are still “possibilities”, not yet realized. Lots of things to do, but not many people to do them with yet. I expected things to start tough and get better over time, which is about how it’s gone. But it’s not so fun to be in the tough part.³

The main way I know how to make friends is to be around the same people a few times a week for months, so in addition to paying rent / advancing my career, getting a job has taken on a great deal of importance for me as a way to meet people.

I look forward to visiting home again. The next trip I have planned is around Christmas, but I would like to figure out a time to visit sooner as well. I especially want to see the people I haven’t known for as long; some part of me feels like those relationships will weaken more quickly if I’m gone too long.

That’s generally how I feel about the whole thing. I was terribly sentimental when I left, but quickly after arriving it became much more practical: I’m simply in the city, and I need to make the most of my time here & on this planet etc.

How is the city?

I’m not entirely qualified to answer, having lived for just over a month. But it’s a good city. It’s undeniably vibrant, controlled chaos. It’s expensive, but you already knew that. Oh also, people are always asking me, “how is the food?” Some places are really good and some are bad. And the selection of cuisines is different.⁴ But not strictly better or worse. And regarding the pizza: it’s good here, but only if it’s fresh, which disappointingly often it is not.

Here’s some other small observations:

1. There are certain things I’ve seen in TV and online enough that I didn’t even notice I didn’t encounter them in my daily life. It wasn’t until I moved that I realized consciously: you might hear crickets as you go to sleep! Ice cream trucks really drive around in some places! Fire escapes exist, schools can have more than two floors, and some people actually root for the New York Yankees.⁵
2. I’m familiar with businesses incentivizing cash payment, but small businesses in New York take it a lot further than I’m used to. Also they tend to have loud yet not very distinctive signs.
3. The pickup soccer scene sucks as far as I can tell. Less field availability means more games are pay-to-play—like 10 bucks!—which feels wrong to me, and the ones that aren’t paid are usually pretty low-quality soccer (in my opinion). Also people actually bring pinnies, which surprised me.
4. Reading on the subway is really nice. I am reading so much lately. (But I kind of miss listening to music while driving.)
5. Mobile data is slower and GPS is less precise here. Too many phones, I guess.
6. A lot of people talk on their phone pretty loudly on the street.
7. You hear a lot of bebop and soul music playing in stores and passing cars, unlike Seattle which of course leans more toward indie rock.