You Can Never Stay Home

On those who left and those who changed anyway

Eleven years ago, I accepted an offer to work at a company based in New York. I felt equal parts excitement and guilt. Save for a two year episode where my father’s job took us to Paraguay, I had lived in the DC area my entire life. I grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia, then lived with Catherine in DC itself for just over three years. My parents, my brother, my sister, two grandmothers and a grandfather, and an uncle, all lived a half hour’s drive away. We had an extensive friend group, some of whom I had known since I was a kid. When the recruiter first reached out, I almost laughed off the idea of taking a job in New York entirely. When we ultimately decided that the offer was too good to ignore, it ate at me. I felt, then, as though I was abandoning some of the most important people in my life. I still feel a little that way, to this day.

That old line about never being able to go home again set in almost immediately. Catherine and I returned to visit DC within months, and it seemed as though there were twice as many condo buildings and the restaurants had already turned over in our old neighborhood. The built environment of my childhood stomping grounds was, if anything, more drastically transformed, especially as the Silver Line neared completion.