Leah McCann Smith | Writer & Editor

Three and a half years. That’s how much I gave to this place, to the city of dreams and, as some say, the greatest city in the world. There’s no doubt it’s great—just look at it. The people it attracts. The work it churns out. The constant buzz of subway performers, Wall Street cronies, and mid-20s and 30s kids who feel like they can maybe get away with never really growing up. You know who you are.

My reasons for leaving are complex, so we’ll summarize it in just the three words here: It was time.

The emotions are high and the nostalgia is thick; I will surely miss New York City. But the things that made me feel special here aren’t the things that made my friends feel special here. They aren’t the things that made my coworkers, my neighbors, and my USPS deliveryman/woman feel special here. They were unique to me, and only I will have those experiences to cherish for the rest of time. But this city deserves to be shared, and in sharing what New York did bring me, perhaps I can bring some peace to myself surrounding my decision to leave it.

New York made me feel grounded. But only after I decided I was leaving it almost 4 years later. Life here was like riding a coaster. Year one: the rise; you never run out of energy or things to do if you put your mind to it. Year two: the rise continues, but the first glimpse of the plateau appears before… Year three: the drop. The anxiety, the emotions, the fear; the time when you really start to cherish spending your entire weekend indoors because you just don’t have the energy to do it anymore. Year three and a half / four: the bottom of the drop, and (potentially) the rising back up again.

See, I think if I’d made it past year four, I would’ve found an even taller coaster to climb, with more dips and sideways loops, but that’s exactly why I’m leaving. It’s not because I don’t love coasters. (I do.) It’s that I’m scared that, if I don’t go, this place could hypnotize me and keep me trapped in its fairgrounds forever. And that’s not necessarily a good thing (for me) or what I want.

New York gave me a resume. The resume I always said I came to New York for to build in the first place, and the resume that guided me in my future endeavors when I decided it was time to go. The resume got me back to the place where I would pursue a life of sweet tea, the average American shopping mall, and beautiful weekend road trips to the mountains or the beach.

New York brought me love. And it was the best gift this place could have ever brought me. But it was *my* kind of love and *my* kind of journey to reach that love, so in this sense, it’s mine and only mine. I found Brian in New York City, and for that, I have this place to write a long and grateful thank-you note to. Though my experience with love is that it expands to more than just people; it comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and the love I gained here expands to the Saturday mornings in my charming Bed-Stuy apartment, the cake doughnuts that awaited me just downstairs, and the older man at the fruit stand on Maiden Lane. I’ll miss that older man at the fruit stand on Maiden Lane.

Almost every day in my last year of living here, I’ve worn my Sterling Silver North Carolina–shaped necklace to remember my home state—the place that raised me to wait for others to walk up the stairs ahead of me, to say excuse me when I got in their way, to smile at strangers when eye contact was made (even if you just don’t feel like it). It’s a place where it’s illegal to offer unsweet tea unless, of course, the sweet tea option is front and center and the first thing the waitress/waiter offers when you sit down at a restaurant like Dixie III in Asheboro, NC.

I was raised in a place that, quite frankly, is—and always will be—more of a home to me than anywhere else in this world. And I’m finally going back home.