nyc break-up list

it's also a love letter

Nov 02, 2025

Hi loves! I started this in July, when I was back in New York after a trip home, and now…well…here we are. If you like being here, consider tapping the ❤️ above — it helps this newsletter more than you know!

“Do you think you have commitment issues?”

I was asked this totally valid question earlier this summer, and the answer is totally yes.

As a human I am very inclined to leave the door half open, wide enough for me to have one foot in, one foot out, in many realms: cities, jobs, relationships. MLDs (Major Life Decisions).

Lately I’ve realized I even do this literally, in the habit of leaving my bedroom door ajar because closing it feels like too much of a commitment: shutting out the world, ‘I am solitary in my room now!’ Leaving it cracked open leaves for room for fluidity, for flow, the exchange of air both ways; the possibility of opening again with ease.

I’ve written about how it often feels better, and almost always more familiar, to linger in the in-between than to leap into the land of change. The pondering is like a warm bath; the jump and the leap is…well…a jump and a leap.

Off a cliff.

My preference to languish in the Land of Bath, rather than dive headfirst into the Big Unknown, is probably part of my inner nature: to some degree unchangeable. It comes with the package, baby.

But I’ve been trying to better discern when the lingering is really just The Fear in disguise, keeping me from my wildest dreams (or even just…the next step).

This year’s flavor, when it comes to ponder-bathing, has been New York City.

Since moving here two years ago, New York has been like my on-again off-again boyfriend.

We have cycled between short-lived but passionate bursts of honeymoon euphoria and months-long dips of drought. Most of my friends are like hmmm, we don’t really see you two together.

The question in the back of my mind most mornings when I wake up has been: Should I break up with New York?

As I have pondered, I have set about making lists.

I made a pro-cons list on the way home from dinner in Fort Greene, skin sticky and damp as I stepped onto the long-awaited G:

PRO

Lots of young hot people.

CON

Way more dateable women than men.
Also a lot of the dateable men are gay.
- (This is obviously not a con in and of itself. But it does hamper things a bit if you, like me, are ~~doomed?~~ fated to seek the romantic company of straight men.)

PRO

Intense creative energy and ambition.

CON

I am not really taking advantage of this creativity and ambition, beyond loyally attending my friends’ endeavors and supporting their dreams.
- Which is really fun and important.
  - But perhaps….my own creative spirit needs a different environment to thrive…?
    - Also does anyone ever just want to like…hang out…?

PRO

Seasons.

CON

This includes six long months where you forget that trees ever once had these peculiar green ornaments called leaves, and your whole world becomes washed out in gray, and your soul takes a sabbatical from your body.

PRO

Walkable.

CON

My feet hurt.
- Also, the public transit is pretty slick for an American city. There’s no denying that. And sometimes you get one of those sleek new spaceship trains with no dividers that go really fast and are really shiny!
- But most of the time the L is down or you get stuck in an underground tunnel or the elevator isn’t working on your way to JFK and the subway system cackles mercilessly as it watches you thunk your two suitcases up five sweaty flights of stairs…
- …but then (pro) people swoop in to help you.
  - With your suitcases and things.
    - And don’t even make a fuss about it.
      - 😭❤️

PRO

Living an easy breezy stroll away from so many close friends.

CON

I will miss them so much when I leave!!!!!!

As July melted to August, my resolve firmed.

But I knew I’d need to keep a list of what specifically I was finding so unbearable, so that anytime I wavered in my decision, I could reference a list of grievances as proof.

My NYC break-up list.

It started as:

As it grew, I realized that most reasons to leave were also, in their own bizarre way, something I had come to love, or at least fondly appreciate (…lantern flies and all).

I kept writing as I watched the sun disappear behind the water:

The way everyone is so extra.

Watching people jog and stroll and strut past an orange sky, it’s almost like they’re extras in a movie cast just for me to watch.

Except every extra is also their own main character: the man with dreadlocks and a keyboard slung over his shoulder; the pair of friends in yoga pants and with hair to their waists, bouncy and elastic-clad; the women in burkas nodding in agreement, hands raised to their lips.

The sunset-dog-walkers and the Airpods-in-joggers and walk-and-talk phone-bloggers. The business guys rocking business suits and Cool Girls rocking slouchy bags and shaggy-chic haircuts.

This colorful cast of characters.

The way each weekend revolves around the party, the buzz, the scene.

It’s vapid!

It’s exhausting!

It’s so fun and a smile can’t help but plaster itself across your face as your hair jumps around your shoulders, and you probably should have worn earplugs, it’s so loud, but it’s just so good to be enveloped like this. To go outside for a smoke break, even though you don’t smoke, and sit on the curb and giggle and talk about nothing.

It’s like candy.

But you can’t live on candy. Too much has left you feeling empty, satisfying your sweet tooth without satiating your hunger.

The extremes.

The sticky humid summer, the golden glow of autumn. The the sweet breath of spring that disappears too quickly, eclipsed by the long spell of winter.

Heavy like that: winter.

The crowds.

And how you can still feel so lonely while surrounded by a sea of people.

(A note from Dec 1: The most physical touch I’ve had today is a stranger’s thigh next to mine on the subway)

The way it’s all so cramped.

How I spend half my paycheck on a room that barely fits my bed and a yoga mat, so when I do my morning stretches I have to scoot my butt as not to knock my knees into the bedposts.

How I ache to spread out, to breathe, to expand. To stretch in all directions.

Maybe the most important reason was: I couldn’t ignore the creeping feeling that the way I was spending my time was fundamentally misaligned with what I treasure most in this life. And our time on this earth is precious! As Oliver Burkeman reminds us, we get about 4,000 weeks if we’re lucky — so how can we spend it well?

Don’t get me wrong, I consider nights out with my girlfriends a truly magical use of my time. It’s the frikkin best. But like, that is just a piece of the pie. A million other things I cherish about being human — time with my family, hikes in the forest, swims in the ocean — have been wondering when they will get their time in the sun, hey?

So we are reuniting with the west coast. I am really enchanted by how doing laundry isn’t a day-long affair involving multiple trips up multiple flights of stairs. But maybe most importantly because together, we can build a life where I can stay: like a stock pot simmering on the stove, growing richer and deeper with time. A life lived with two feet in.

And still, despite all the reasons and lists, I’ve been crying every day, truly just leaking tears, because I somehow seem to have fallen helplessly in love with my life here. Even though we are totally wrong for each other.

In some ways, this heartbreak was destined from Day One: when I moved here, I knew our romance would be short-lived; that New York would be more fleeting lover than life partner. A passionate encounter that left us both for the better, despite our fundamental incompatibility.

The thing is, when I gave my heart to this city, it gave me people in return. People who have left footprints on my heart. My heart, where they will be nestled forever and ever and ever.

So maybe it’s more that I’ve fallen helplessly in love with the people here. I knew I’d be breaking up with New York, but I hadn’t fully considered the million other mini break-ups: the living-5-minutes-from-my-bestie break-up, the A&C-super-biscuit-breakfast-sandwich-breakup, the saying-hi-to-my-neighbhor’s-dog break-up.

Central Park lovers; Sunday moon; best-ever biscuits

Moving is made of a million teeny break-ups. Which, I am hoping, is the price to pay for inching my way closer to the person I am becoming. That is the big idea.

Hoping because, as is the way of future events, it’s the great frikkin’ unknown. The yawning chasm of what is still to be. The ginormo question mark of *life*.

My twenties continue to teach me so much about being brave enough to break your own heart (some age-old Cheryl Strayed wisdom). When you are the one doing the breaking up, it’s so easy to second guess yourself. It’s so hard to plunge into the unknown — the unknown! — and trust the deep-down feeling asking for change. To leave the relationship, the familiar, for a future that is blurry-edged at best, but calls us nonetheless: in this case an ocean breeze, sun on skin. A softer kind of life.

The unknown, the big mystery. What’s still to be written.

Like any break-up, I remind myself we can always get back together. (As my friend reminds me, “There are no rules.”)

But right now it’s just time to see other people.