Sometimes you just have to leave the city to get some perspective. As much as New York can lift you higher, she can hold you down, breathless, when you’re low. 

The city can act as an aide for loneliness and feed on its most vulnerable. These highs and lows teach you lessons, but sometimes you just need to give it the middle finger and go west. 

And by the west, I mean New York’s sunny, overzealous sister, Los Angeles. 

Different from some New Yorkers before me, I don’t hate LA. I don’t think anyone does, deep down. It works the same as those that say they don’t like New York. It’s impossible to truly hate either of these two cities. Sure jealous and city-insecure individuals like to pin them against each other, but all people are doing in both cities is chasing beauty and happiness. The approach may be different, but the results are just the same. 

New York’s dark side can make hard times go pitch black. A never-ending dry spell feels like a thousand years in the desert. The loneliness creeps into the cracks of your New York shell and messes with your heart. 

As much as it pains me to say it, LA heals New York wounds. It’s the escape every New Yorker needs. There are so many juice cleansers there, it’s impossible not to feel rejuvenated with all that kale and ginger sloshing around your body.

There are just things LA offers that New York just can’t. Driving alone through the winding roads, the feeling that you’re the only one in the world in a city of cars, sticking your hand out the window releasing the curled-up anxiety of a New York winter. 

I’m unsure why, but sitting on a beach in LA in the morning is unearthly therapeutic. Maybe it’s because it is the farthest point away from New York, physically and figuratively. The furthest point for the furthest perspective.

For six months, New York left me lonelier than usual. It was the slow end of a Covid-19 ridden world that released the toxins it brought me. With the world opening up, I was left with no other choice but to deal with the feelings I blamed on Covid-19. Turns out, they are more than just the Covid-19 blues. 

Dating is lonely, but months without a connection to a new soul took its toll on me. As long as you’re on your self-love journey, you’re off the path just the same. They come in phases, each one offering you a challenge, then a lesson. 

The moment you think you’ve won the self-love challenge; you find more things about yourself that need more love. Then you start to wonder if the dating path you're on is right. 

As the Covid months grew longer, I wanted more than just myself for a change. As a single veteran, this feeling is daunting. I thought I was enough. Maybe I’m not? Maybe I just want more than me some nights? 

Now that I’m sitting in a café in LA watching James Kennedy from Vanderpump Rules order a coffee with WHOLE milk, I know it’s okay to want more. It’s just knowing what that more is. 

More love? More company? More laughter? Is it a relationship? A fling? Touch? I became so frustrated with myself in New York with the thought of more. Was I not doing enough in love? Were my efforts not enough to manifest this “more” that I was craving? I want love, but I also want freedom. I’m not ready for a relationship, but maybe I’m ready for a little more than me. 

There’s a man in LA that gives me all the mores I think about, but all those mores aren’t lining up with where I am now. It’s the more I want, but it’s not the more I need now. 

I reunited with this LA man after a year of me in New York. But the me who came back to LA was lost. Seeing him made me even more lost. The final last blow made me question everything I was and everything I was doing. The year before, I came to LA so confident, but this time around I came already broken. And seeing him broke me completely. I was staring at something I wanted but couldn’t have. Why was the more I wanted so far away from where I wanted to be?

With every past moment and decision swimming around my brain, I had to make a choice. I had to figure out what I wanted for this next chapter. The chapter after the broken. 

I drove as far away from New York as I could and found myself at the beach. Californians ran by searching for mindless solace. As a New Yorker, my mindless solace is staring into an empty abyss. The same mindless stare you make at the person across the subway car. You’re looking at them but not seeing them. You’re just thinking.

In my LA thoughts, I realized I needed to stop comparing my dating life to those around me. Stop comparing it to the more I have in LA because that more is not meant for me now. The feelings I have in LA aren’t to ruin me but to open me up to the more that’s waiting for me in New York. I’ve been so scared to open my heart up completely to the dating world. I’ve been protecting the precious single life I so carefully curated. But what’s built is meant to be broken. 

The more I found in New York finally cracked the mold. And the more I need now came seeping in. The more I need in this phase of my life. I finished manifesting my new chapter on LA ground, splashed myself with salty water, and turned back towards New York. 

New York has the more I need. The more I have in LA showed me that. LA made the final break then revived me with blazing sun. Refreshed and slightly blonder, I was ready to reenter the city that has stolen my heart. LA guided me back to New York and back to the person I want to become there. 

How can you hate a place that makes you love where you’re meant to be? LA is where I get perspective, but New York is what makes those dreams a reality. 

And who knows, maybe the more in LA is what I need later, but right now the more I want is waiting on the corner of 57th Street and 6th Ave. And he’s very cute.

New York, I’m running back to you…