Has It Been Enough?

Two things have happened in the past few years. One, I moved abroad (much discussed here already). Two, Blogspot became even more of underutilized platform (blogging now largely being taken over by substack).

I don’t have much to say on the second development, clearly — I am here.

But on the first note, I have really loved my new life. I love London — the parks, the safety, the diversity, the beauty of architecture, plants, birds, and the way people dress (generally). I also loved living in France — I loved the colors of the sky, grass, and the sea. The food and care for ingredients, the je ne sais quoi of people and how they carry themselves. And, most pertinently, the art.

I found France to be far more diverse than I expected, although I already knew London was. I remember on my first trip to London as an adult, I took the Piccadilly line, and a girl in a headscarf was playing with a miscellaneous group of other girls. I say miscellaneous because it didn’t even matter where they were from, and they were about ten years old. It was so shocking to me, because I never felt that sort of inclusion in America — like I was a ‘normal’ person, certainly not in the 00s.

But, two things have happened since this adult trip that I took in 2018. For one, London has gotten more expensive and the job market has shrank, making it less competitive. And, two, I think America is changing (slowly). I used to love British TV shows because they showed a diversity I wasn’t used to seeing on American-funded TV. Now in the US you have shows like Deli Boyz and comedians like Aziz Ansari who make being my experiences no longer so niche but a little more mainstream and understandable (not that they do it in the best way haha).

Recently, one of my friends in Paris opined on taxes in Europe, saying that the money we make here is so that the man working at the grocery store has a good life. And I think that there are actually many good things from the man in the grocery store having a good life. He can create art, plays for which tickets are 20 or 30 euros, and go on holidays and educate himself. 

It does, however, mean that in a time of diminishing disposable income one can afford a lot less in Europe than you could in America — and a lot less than the life I am used to, to be very honest.

What about the crises of homelessness, drugs and gun violence domestically in the US? At the end of the day, I suppose what I would pay in US taxes are just a small drop in the bucket that I could probably not even actually consider myself implicit.

It’s much harder to meet people in America. In my new life, I’ve met princesses, heirs, as well as all sorts of lovely people. I could do that in America, too, but it would require more effort, or not quite the same circles.

In the end, it comes down to a trade off between living an avid cultural life vs thriving professionally / financially.

And it really hurts me to realise that the things that matter on paper — money, career — would be better in the US because I love my life in London. 

I love walking through Notting Hill or Hyde Park to get home. I love my Scandi cafes, Persian restaurants, and being able to buy freekeh at Waitrose. I love taking the train to Paris and walking around on the bridges and taking a million photos because cloudy or sunny or winter or spring it always looks beautiful. I love being on a plane for two hours and being in Italy, rather than being on a plane for four hours to arrive in Aspen where everything is expensive, overpriced, and overcrowded.

Has it been enough? Can I go back now, satisfied by a fun few years? (Hopefully not before two more years are over.)

I know that many people live in places they do not like and in jobs they find difficult and I wonder if I should just be OK with living in the US for other advantages like money and career and memories with family which at the end of the day mean more. And I love my friends and my life in London — but it is lonely sometimes. 

I suppose all lives I could have lived or have lived have been lonely in some way. I felt lonely and isolated in Dallas with my family and friends and with the way I wanted to live my life. I felt lonely in France. To be honest, I rarely feel lonely in London now because I fill up my time with so many things.

Perhaps counterintuitively, now that I write down my thoughts, I guess the doubts I had about life in London are disappearing. 

I was beginning to wonder if I should move to New York for money and for love — not for any particular person, but because the kind of person I would love can be more easily found there. 

Both are likely. And I am scared and I am sad because I am 32 and I know that I will read this back at an older age and think that at this very time I was so young and should not have felt this way. But it is the reality of how I feel right now.

Apart from really wanting these two things, I don’t feel the desire for a new beginning, not really for a new job, nor for a new place to live nor new set of friends to be close to. I suppose I could find the things I love in New York and I will test that out soon, but I feel like I will find them to be subpar replacements for what I can have in London

I guess I have answered my own question and my doubts.