Tuesday
Jun062006
Today.
June 6, 2006I’m so, so sad, and all I do is cry. I miss Brooklyn. I miss everything about it. I want my friends here. I miss my mom being able to come over for the afternoon and drive me nuts. I miss the noise. I miss sitting outside on my stoop with Henry when there was nothing to do and Henry calling out “Good evening, madam” at everyone who walked by. I miss walking across the street to buy my groceries and the store manager shouting “My friend!” when Henry came into his sight. I miss walking down the street for an iced coffee. I miss not feeling lonely and pathetic; I miss my life. I want this to get better, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to make it any better. I just want to feel better.
Reader Comments (130)
Hang in there...it will get betterm though. I've adapted to the suburbs, but I'm also a little sad that I've adapted--know what I mean?
Any way it works out, I wish a lot of future happines for you.
To help me adjust, a good friend gave me a homework assignment and because I was always a dutiful person, I did it. Each day, I was to find one thing I liked about Florida and write it down. At the end a week, I was to mail the list to him and start a new one.
Once, the sole thing I could find to list was that my apartment was only three blocks from the freeway entrance that would take me North toward home again. But having to search for things to like and list gradually changed my attitude, and six months later (though I never learned to love Florida -- Santa also wears loud bermuda shorts with a fur-trimmed jacket; how tacky is that?), the ache of homesickness had gone.
You strike me as a dutiful person. Go do your homework and each week let us know what you've found to like about Jersey.
(And about the sleepy heavy sweaters? You've just described my 64-year-old husband! Sorry, ladies!)
Do you bake? If you bake your neighbors cookies it might make you feel better. DO they do things like that in Jersey?
Living in the suburbs can be very isolating. I hope you'll find a nice cafe and a good park and maybe a rec center ... all those are good places to meet new moms. I know, it's not the same as your old friends.
One thing I suggest is: trust yourself. Trust your initial reasons for moving. You will second-guess, second-guess, second-guess, but you made the choice to move, and you should trust that you had real, good reasons for the move. Right now you're probably telling yourself that you made the decision w/o really understanding the choice. But you still don't really understand the choice: it's too early. Trust.
And? You are not trapped. Tell yourself it is only for 18 months, for instance. Get your house unpacked, do stuff to improve it, get it ready for selling at a profit. It will give you a sense of purpose regarding the house (I am quite sure you have a sense of purpose in other ways, ha) and at the end you will either have a house ready to get top dollar, or a really perfect, Alicified place to live.
Finally, can you take the train into the city? Maybe enjoy some of the things you miss, and rediscover some of the reasons you moved? Maybe institute one night of the week where you and H spend the night with your mom?
Mostly, trust yourself. When you're smart and emotional, you are super aware of all the million of pathways your life COULD take. But this is the one you chose, so just go with it for a little while. It isn't forever (unless you want it to be). You can always take another path later.
I know, this is a bunch of advice you didn't ask for. But it's hard to resist: we want you to feel better!
It will be okay.
When I said "It will be okay," I meant it rather philosophically. But now I mean it practically. You have two sun rooms! It will be okay.
I know, it's not the house that matters ... it's the people who are missing from your life, from your mom to the grocer. But like everyone's saying, after a short bit when you meet some more people (and you will, if you get out there), things will look better. As a perfect stranger I am almost 90% sure of this. Two sun rooms! Parquet floors! Double-hung windows! No rats! No stank!
Some amount of homesickness is inevitable, though. When I moved from Virginia to Texas, occasionally throughout the first year I lived here I would have homesick panic attacks. I'd be out driving somewhere and suddenly think, "Oh, my God, I've got to get home!"
I'd also resent the hell out of not knowing where anything was... like I needed to find a tailor to alter a bridesmaid dress and all I could think of was the one in my old city (that I knew and trusted) and how I'd have to just open the phone book to find a new one in the new city and that just cheesed me off no end.
It'll take a while to feel at home there, sorry to say. But everyday it will get better and you'll find new great things about where you are now. In the meantime, you've got an awful lot of people here who care about you and support you.
New places are so, so hard, especially when they are so starkly different from the ones we left. It doesn't help to hear that you're not alone, unless those people are IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND CAN BE YOUR FRIEND like NOW, I know. I moved from Boston to a very conservative part of Florida, and had an overwhelming urge to get 11 tattoos, blue hair and start blasting old Cure albums at top volume just to shake these people up.
It's hard. I know. It's so hard sometimes. It will get better - it will. This is one of those shitty, annoying things that nothing but time can heal.