v. 68 The Home That Saved Me (And Why We’re Leaving Anyway)
Welcome to Life, Created — a weekly(ish) reflection on the wisdom of being a grown-ass human and staying curious when the world’s on fire. Rooted in microjoys, meaning, and the moments that make it all worthwhile.
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We moved to Montclair, N.J., seven months into the pandemic and three months after my nephew was murdered in a random act of violence. My mother was pretending to be okay but less so by the day. We'd come here to be closer to her, and she died two months later. Pancreatic cancer, diagnosed at the end of August, gone by the end of September. Shortly after we buried her, one of my siblings had a stroke and nearly died. Within months of his beginning to heal, I received my own diagnosis. It had been a whirlwind of loss that left me trying to figure out who I was when everything I'd counted on was stripped away. All within a ten-month period of time. I didn't know it then, but I came here to heal all that hadn't yet happened.
And I did heal, in ways I didn't know I needed. I found my rhythm again. I wrote Microjoys here, pulling hope from grief in ways that surprised even me. I spent years trying to remember who I was and who I'm becoming. For the first time ever, I put my business and work last and my personal life first. (Trust me, my business currently reflects that. Oof.) But I also learned to make latkes the way Mama Shelley used to, working from her handwritten notes in that precise script I'd always loved. I painted really shitty abstracts on canvases spread across the dining room table, colors bleeding into each other the way feelings do when you finally let them. I learned quickly that I am not a painter, regardless of how easy actually talented artists make it look. I volunteered at a local organization serving unhoused people, showing up in ways that felt like coming back to myself. Montclair held me while I remembered how to be a person again.
But sometimes healing works so well that you outgrow the container that held you. I am me again, optimistic and forward-leaning and ready to say yes to the world. But, and this is very hard to say out loud, I am mostly not happy. This is the first time in my life I can say that sentence without it feeling like failure. I know the difference now between being grateful for where you've been and pretending it's still where you belong. I was built for stages, for the electric exchange of wisdom with strangers who become friends in the span of a single conversation. I was built for long dinners with girlfriends where we solve nothing and everything over non-alcoholic (and sometimes alcoholic) cocktails and belly laughter that echoes off restaurant walls. I was built for the particular joy of discovering a new neighborhood with Ira, of hiking trails we've never seen, of being out in the world instead of tucked away from it.
Montclair is a beautifully vibrant creative town full of people who have chosen suburban rhythms, and there is nothing wrong with that choice. But Ira and I were not built for suburban norms. We have no children and I promise you, we will not be having any. There is no reason for us to be in the suburbs. We were built for the energy of cities and for the randomness of possibility. We thrive in the kind of life that happens when you're in the mix instead of watching from the sidelines. Ira left his small, idyllic Minnesota hometown at the age of 18 seeking bigger things, and I left my not-so-idyllic hometown at the age of 19 for the same reasons. We were made for each other and for movement and for the particular aliveness that comes from being exactly where you're supposed to be, even when where you're supposed to be keeps changing.
So we're leaving. This is a hard thing to say out loud because I've been alluding to it for years before I was ready to admit that being in the suburbs is turning me into a woman I am just not: cynical, somewhat apathetic, a flattened version of myself. Not running or fleeing because Montclair failed me. We're leaving because it succeeded. It gave me space to become myself, and now myself is ready to engage with the entirety of the world again. I'm loosely apartment-hunting in Brooklyn, dreaming of mornings where we walk to coffee shops instead of driving to ones across town (not that we have to, we have lot sof cafe nearby, too), where we can catch a train to anywhere, where the energy of eight million people doing eight million different things reminds us daily that there is no single way to be alive. I don't know what comes next, but I know it starts with honoring what is actually true instead of what looks good on paper. Healing happened here. Happiness is waiting somewhere else. Both things can be true at the same time, and both deserve to be honored. Montclair will always be the place that caught me when I fell. (And holy shit, did I fall.) New York will be the place where we remember how to fly. Once again.
P.S. I don't recall ever crying while writing an essay for Life, Created, but this here…is making me cry. I suppose that tells me all I need to know, friends. Onward.
Every essay features a section called “One Fine Microjoy” – an experience, place, or thing that brings me joy, grace, and hope amidst life’s ups and downs. I hope it invites you to recognize and appreciate the delights that ground, inspire, and enrich our journey.
This week’s microjoy: we were sitting at the bar imbibing 1 1/2 cocktails each and four hours later, the receipt arrived with a little guestbook. Clearly, I’m not much of a drinker. My girlfriend is a PHENOMENAL illustrator. Truly gifted. I forced her to draw a sketch in about 41 seconds while slightly tipsy and under the pressure of me hovering like an impatient art critic. Not her best work but also...honestly not bad for someone who'd been drinking wine and had me breathing down her neck demanding an instant masterpiece creation.
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With love, wisdom [and small mercies] from Montclair. xx
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