I don't want to write this. I'm assuming just avoiding it will make it go away. I've never had a bad report from a doctor about a terminal illness, but I'm assuming this is an insanely tiny glimpse of what that could possibly be like. We're leaving New York City and moving back to Oklahoma the end of this month.
We're still healthy and well, but leaving this place and all the time and resources we put into getting here plus the connections and close friendships we've made feels like a part of us is dying. Good Lord that sounds incredibly dramatic and selfish considering that to date nearly 92,000 have died with more 1.5 million cases of coronavirus here in the United States.
Our apartment is already looking weird as we're starting to pack up. There's brand new heavy-duty cardboard boxes collapsed and leaning against the walls just waiting to be useful. Anyone who's been inside a typical NYC apartment knows how tiny they are to begin with, so now it feels even more claustrophobic as we're starting to wrap up our lives here in Brooklyn. Our bookshelf has been emptied and my desk is starting to thin out. We're working our way through our pantry and basing menus on what we've got left vs. buying additional staples we'd have to throw out. We'd purged a good deal of what didn't need in moving from Oklahoma back in November 2018, so we don't have too much to toss before the move back.
I hate this. I absolutely hate this.
We'd planned and prepared for years to move to New York. Now we're here and it's crushing to leave so soon for such a terrible reason.
My first time to New York was during the summer of my Sophomore year of college while on tour with a school music group. I'd specifically written about NYC being impressive and that I'd "...never seen anything like it. I'm not sure if I could live there though. Everything moved a little too fast for me." Keep in mind too that this was 2002 and I was excited enough about eating at the Times Square Olive Garden to put it in my journal. Bonus points too for it being nearly 18 years to the day that I wrote that. Nerd.
That next summer another music tour had me back in New York. I specifically remember being in the city and the moment I committed to living there one day. Just about every major life decision I've made from that point on centered around making the jump to New York happen. When I bought my house in 2008 I was intentional about it being small because I wanted to get used to living in a smaller place. I know Anne and I talked about living in NYC before we even got married. We got her wedding ring not too far from Central Park. Over the years plenty of other major decisions – including selling our home and living off the profits while I worked to get established here – were intentionally made all just to get us to where we are now. Surely that's part of why it's so devastating to leave after only being here 18 months and under these circumstances.
The hardest thing for me is thinking that I failed. In my right state of mind I absolutely know that I didn't, but I fear that a very small but real part of me will spend the rest of my life thinking I did.
The reality is that we're now living in the global epicenter of a pandemic. We're literally living in the middle of something the world hasn't seen in 100 years. This nonsense is out of our hands and absolutely not something we could've planned for. The New York City we moved to isn't here right now and won't be for a good while.
"The factors that made the city the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic — its density, tourism and dependence on mass transit — complicate a return to any semblance of normalcy. The city is still far from meeting the public health metrics necessary to reopen, from available critical-care beds to new hospital admissions for the virus."
“I don’t think the New York that we left will be back for some years,” said Gregg Bishop, the commissioner of the city’s small businesses agency. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.”
"If only I'd set aside more money" says the guy who set aside more than enough to make it through plenty of thin back-to-back months. But a global shut down that started 10+ weeks ago and doesn't look to let up anytime soon was just too much. We can't keep blowing through our savings and the little money we do have coming in just holding our breath while this historic moment tries to drown us.
I'd seen an interview with the CEO of Southwest Airlines this last week and he talked about "radical restructuring." As of last week airline traffic was down 94% and "to stem the bleeding, airlines have made deep cuts to every imaginable expense..."
"Our goal is to thrive... The imperative here is to survive." - Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly
Looking at my business records I know that a large percentage of my revenue comes from shooting live events. I don't expect those to come back anytime soon. I also know I made a decent amount of money in the last couple years on travel jobs. Again, those numbers are certainly going to drop. Who knows what live production work is going to look like moving forward before a vaccine is available. Thank goodness my Filmsupply revenue is still strong and helping make financial ends meet.
Regarding family life here during the pandemic in New York City, it is unquestionably difficult at the moment. Both physically and emotionally we've never been closer and I know eventually we'll see how this period of time has made us unquestionably stronger and better people. Still, even in the best of times it's hard AF raising a young family here let alone what we're going through now.
There's a tiny sliver of comfort knowing we're not the only ones having to make decisions like this. A shocking number of our friends in similar situations here in the city are also packing up and scattering across the country. Another pin of light in this dark time has been Saint Anne the Wife being able to re-connect with friends back in Oklahoma City and land a couple job interviews at some solid elementary schools.
No doubt there'll be a silver lining to all this nonsense and I'd love to wrap this up with optimism, but right now I'm grieving. Obviously I'm worried about acting too soon seeing how it's only been a week since we even started seriously considering moving back to Oklahoma City, but at some point decisions need to be made with the information we have. In a text exchange with a buddy of mine who's also in production and planning to leave the city he talked about how "it's not the real world out there" right now. We've "gotta act with what we know."
I'm no where near being able to fully process leaving at this point. Gutting a dream shouldn't have to happen for such shitty reasons.