Woe is Me: What Happens After I Get What I Want?
part one
“Woe is Me” is a series I unintentially started after constant relflection based on big and small changes in my life, and how these changes (good or bad) helped me get one step closer to the life I’ve always dreamed of.
Two years ago, I wrote this article for a digital magazine called Flique Editorial. Read below for a quick flashback into the POV of a twenty-something moving out for the first time.
˚ · • . ° .
Philadelphia was not part of the plan. You know — that tentative yet romantic plan you make after graduation about which all-consuming city you’re going to bleed your bank account dry in?
Yes, that one.
New York was the initial plan. New York was always the plan. But who the hell am I being picky about where I was going to spend $17 something on an espresso martini?
So, after gut-checking my salary and mental stability, Philadelphia became this gamble where I bet my financial freedom and unknowingly — the weight of my happiness. (We’ll come back to this in a moment, I promise).
For the past year and a half, I made it my bitter mission to manifest an apartment in the city. Far from the woes of suburban trauma that waited at my childhood doorstep and far from the static environment that continued to stunt my growth as an adult. As tantalizing as that mission was in the midst of the pandemic, I found a perverse sense of joy in romanticizing the move.
I was so caught up in the Pinterest mood boards, the seemingly endless Zillow listings, and the social media vlogs of other twenty-somethings living their best lives, I lost track of what I authentically needed from my move.
Though I am still struggling to find a clear reason, having the freedom and space to grow into someone I can be proud of seems fitting for now. As of early August, I have the apartment I manifested, the job stability I always craved, and of course, the city I would bleed my bank account dry in.
Now what?
After checking off goals I had written a year ago, I feel profoundly empty not knowing what I need to do next. Any level-headed youth would absolutely revel in the moments of moving out and finding independence in a big old city right? For me, a Type A neurotic, it’s hard to take it all in and exhale. At least for now.
See, I’ve finally “made it” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) yet at the same time, I’m paralyzed with fear of the uncertainty that still remains in my life. This brings me to a typical “ah-ha” moment I had recently walking down Broad St on a sweltering, ugly sweat-dripping-everywhere kind of day.
If Philadelphia was a gambling table, let’s just say that I placed all of my cards (and energy) on top of it in the hopes that winning this bet would make the rest of my problems magically disappear.
It is almost as if I am waiting for the city to send me signals and give me permission to be happy, telling me this is where I’m supposed to be and this is what I’m supposed to be doing.
The truth is just as ugly as August weather on the East Coast.
Philadelphia is not able to fix what will always be broken. No matter how great a city may be, it will never be able to heal what I’m going through internally, or externally. It can make things easier — sure, but chasing a destination is never the answer. Life does not become suddenly perfect after you accomplish a goal. Was I naive to think any differently?
Maybe.
So as a naive, relentless romantic, this move was the catalyst for officially meeting an old, familiar friend of mine — reality.
Reality greeted me as quickly as I opened the door with the keys to my new apartment. It taught me that moving on and forward from one step of life to the next was never supposed to be easy or as effortless as others make it seem. It is a slow, hauntingly lonely, and stressful process. But it is necessary.
Reality also introduced me to the immense weight of survivor’s guilt that lives within me. After all, I moved out of my working, single mother’s apartment into a city that was unexpected, to say the least.
I was always emotionally tethered to my mother’s needs and wants; whatever she was feeling, I felt. Subconsciously, I spent the last decade trying to control how I could possibly make her more emotionally stable. Perhaps happy again. I didn’t need a therapist to tell me that I was not responsible for her happiness. But as the youngest of three, I quickly had to grow up fast and shed the role of “child” and transform into the role of “caretaker”.
The very idea of moving on and finding my own happiness seems selfish at first. How could I live with the guilt of leaving my mother behind while I go frolic in the life she gave me? It simply isn’t the Indian way — or at least the traditional nuance I was brought up within a strict South Indian household. My sense of caring for the “collective” instead of focusing on the “individual” stems from my culture but I am slowly learning that in order to move on from my past, I need to find value in the “individual”. I cannot help the people I love if I do not heal myself first.
Moving to Philadelphia is the first step.
It happened. I did it. I moved out and I am completely lost. I don’t have the answers or a substantial list of goals I want to accomplish. I don’t think I will for a very long time. Like any city, I know I have to ease into it... hear every pulsating siren at night, find comfort where comfort is absent, and actually enjoy the process of delayed gratification.
What I have left are some questions to think about as I start my new life here in Philadelphia.
If I’m leaving, what am I losing?
Now that I’ve made it? What am I gaining?
Wish me luck.