Tae Yoon: Life from 2006-2021

i'm tired of meeting people in the context of new york.

since high school, i would say most of the close friends i have met and made were all from places other than new york. whether it's california, maine, canada or any other place in the world, i felt fortunate to be already living in a city where millions of people flock to on a regular basis and uproot and change their lives for. meeting all these new people is great because i hear their stories and learn about how different their lives were from mine while growing up---life outside nyc does exist. i especially always wonder how their streets and homes looked like (to this day i have no idea for almost all of my friends who i didn't grow up with in queens).

then i start thinking about other random shit like maybe how different their persona back at home was compared to their nyc persona now. and then i wonder about things like where they went out to on the weekends with their friends or how different their daily commute used to be with their cars---i could ponder about it forever, it's fascinating.

now they live in nyc and we go out to places like so and so and we eat at places like so and so and our favorite neighborhood is so and so. this is their life and who they are now in new york and it's all i know of them.

but now i want to explore my other personas in places other than new york. i want to travel and meet people in different places and context and take all the tools i've learned in the city and put them to use in other places. i'm tired of meeting people at the same parties and having that same inevitable conversation about where we grew up and why they're in new york now and blah blah. i want to feel liberated and be in a completely new environment, just like all the people who came to this city.

nyc is magical at every age and it always has and forever will be. whether i'm here or you're here or john and sally smith are in new york or not, it doesn't matter. the city will always be here still chugging away and knowing that comfortable thought makes the thought of leaving it so much easier.