When it comes to most choices, big and small, I ask myself again and again, Are you sure? and But what if a different choice would make you happier? I have OCD, and part of that means I have a hard time trusting myself.
Everyone online is doing something cooler or better than me. And because they are doing something cooler, they have more opportunities, closer access to… (what? Success? Other cool people?)
Everyone online who lives in LA (actually, anywhere in California) or New York has unlocked their best lives—especially other artists. They are happier than I am.
This is some of my subconscious chatter that goes unchecked when I scroll. Deciding where to live is one of those choices my brain gets stuck on. Forget that it’s an immense privilege to decide where to live. Forget that wherever you go, there you are. Forget that the grass is always greener. Forget, forget, forget everything I know to be true and ask instead: are you sure? and But what if?
After spending two years down south, my wife and I made the move back to the midwest last June. It had been our loose plan to return here at some point. After living in the west (Denver) and the south (Savannah), the midwest carried, for me, an irreplaceable sense of home and belonging.
I love Lake Michigan (and I love telling people who’ve never seen The Great Lakes, to their incredulity, If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was the ocean). I love the forests of West Michigan. I think I might even love the seasons, now that I take an SSRI.
I love my family, too. They’re not all in Michigan anymore, my brothers on opposite sides of the country. But the highest concentration of them are, my sister and brother-in-law and two of my nephews and father. The thing about my family is that I didn’t always feel at home with them, not after my mother died. Without her, I didn’t feel at home anywhere or with anyone.
But when I moved back to Michigan from Denver at the start of COVID, I relished in the feeling of sitting around a table together, laughing. Not all of us there, our family changed in irrevocable ways, but still a family who laughed together. With that settled in another lesson I’ve learned from grief that, like most grief lessons, I can’t unknow. It’s nothing groundbreaking. You’ve probably heard it a million times in one phrasing or another: our time with each other is finite.
These things together, in addition to still wanting to try out major city life, are what led us here.
If you consider our individualistic Western culture, and the endless social media highlight reel that favors big risks, throwing caution to the wind, the perfect aesthetic, and chasing a dream, then deciding where to live based primarily on where people you love live is not particularly cool. It’s not glamorous or sexy.
On the surface, it’s nothing radical. Yet, when I think about the messaging I’ve worked to drown out in order to hear what I actually want and value, it does feel radical. As a writer, one of the spirals I do laps around is, Will I not regret being a 20-something writer living in New York City?
It’s creative FOMO.
Forget that I love Chicago. Forget that I love my wife and our three cats and our 1000ish square foot apartment that gives us enough space to not lose our minds. Forget that I could drive a few hours and be at my nephew’s soccer game. Forget that there are thriving writer communities here, too, of course. Forget, forget, forget, and ask instead: are you sure and But what if?
The question of regret—specifically, Will I regret not being a 20-something writer living in New York City?—is really a question of, Can I accept all the lives I won’t get to live in favor of the one I am living? And then it’s not about place or homemaking at all. It’s about fear, and it’s about inspiration. I am inspired by so many people, so many lives, I have so many dreams. And ultimately, it doesn’t matter what choices I make, it will always be at the expense of another choice, and because I am who I am, I am inclined to wonder if I would be happier had I made those other choices.
Forget that as I write this, I’m sitting in the sun at a park near my apartment, a park I adore. Forget that a young mother sits across the field while her two children run around me. Forget that before this, I walked to a new bakery and ate my ube oatmeal cream pie on a nearby bench in bliss. Forget that I love this walkable city and my easy access to public transportation.
I don’t want to forget. This is my goal.
When my brain asks, Are you sure? and But what if? I want to not even have time to answer because I am so happily accosted with the reality of living in my body in the life I’ve chosen.
xoxo,
Elle