Anywhere Galvanized

Why It is OK Leave | USA

I’m leaving San Francisco next week, but I keep dwelling on all the reasons to stay. Is that how it is supposed to feel when you leave a place that fits you just fine?

When I reflect back on four years, it’s as though the $75 parking tickets and tiresome days downtown never existed. It’s like Will Smith circa 1997 hit me with a neuralyzer and I’ve only been left with memories of charcuterie at the park, urban sunsets, and backyard dinner parties. I struggle to remember the days when I wanted to leave, and so I’ve started to make excuses to stay.

I will never get this house back if I leave it now. My twenties are just about over anyway… should I stick it out? I may get promoted if I stay, and I think that one chick from college is going to invite me to her wedding in the spring. Besides, my nieces and nephews are growing older by the minute. Hell, my parents are growing older too. Am I being selfish? Now that I think of it, I’m actually quite alright doing what I’m doing at the moment. A dog might be nice. Should get a dog? 

But, I’m leaving anyway.

One of the most important things I’ve ever been forewarned of is that life only gets more complicated.

Today is never really the best day to go, but three months or three years from now is rarely any better. There comes a time when we have to make decisions about what we want to experience within our years. These are the turning points. Because the lone gray hair we discovered at 25 will gain plenty of accomplices, and time has a way of dragging us along if we let it. Sure, we could wait until our bank accounts are brimming and our careers are secured. Or we could lose everything. And waiting in fear is no place to live, now is it?

I am leaving because I already shoved everything that matters into my 50L backpack. It’s too late to get back my job and the room of my apartment. I am leaving to sleep in strange beds and to wake up to the soundtrack — click, chirp, thud — of unfamiliar places. I say goodbye so that I can wander around cities where everyone is a stranger, and the things I have in common are not language or history, but the fact that we are humans and walking on the same gum-blemished sidewalk. I venture out for dimly lit rooms and shared bathrooms with lukewarm showers so that my expectations of comfort might dwindle, so that I  can finally redefine what is necessary. I will tire myself on bike rides and hikes through rugged landscapes and on overnight trains across entire countries. I hope to discover a place or two that everyone should know about, yet choose to tell no one so that I can keep them for myself. I anticipate good days where I feel enlivened by the world and overwhelmed by its abundance. I also forecast terrible days that leave me questioning humanity and the state of things. I will feel lost, and fragile, and frustrated, but it is all in the interest of becoming better. I am leaving with the hopes of becoming more open, generous, and brave.

The world is a massive place with infinite possibilities. It is ok to leave because it is better to do something than nothing at all.

The feeling that tells me to stay is little more than a sign that I have been lucky. That the last 4 years were not wasted, but beautifully spent. Soon enough, the one-way plane tickets may drag me away, but the thrill of adventure will carry me forward. I will never be as young as I am right now, so I’m choosing to take my chances on something big.

I will forever have these years in San Francisco as an eccentric, exciting, meaningful, too-short chapter in my book. Later, dudes.

Goodbye never comes easy. Some candid thoughts on how we can love a place and leave it anyway.

5 Comments

  • Reply
    Kerri Guisness
    September 23, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    “Oh the places you will go”…at some point that was a book I read to you as a child …. And then it became a template for your life…. It’s a great big world out there… I’m proud of you for having eyes wide open to see it… To breathe it…to be part of it! Mom

  • Reply
    Sarah
    September 23, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    It’s a big wide world and the two of you will embrace it and improve it through your travels. Then later, you can get a dog….

  • Reply
    dawn record
    September 23, 2016 at 8:36 pm

    This is a wonderful post, guys. I’m always so impressed by you.
    You are brave and beautiful and we love you so.
    We’ll be seeing you somewhere out there, and thinking of you every day until then.
    xox

    • Reply
      Taylor Record
      October 3, 2016 at 2:11 pm

      Thank you so much, Dawn! We’re trying to be. Can’t wait to see you somewhere soon!

  • Reply
    what the hell is a cat café?: San Francisco, USA – Travel Outlandish
    February 12, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    […] We’ve already warned our grandmothers that we won’t be married by 26, having our first child by 28.5, or making a downpayment on our starter house by 31, because let’s be honest… we could never afford a house anywhere near here, anyway. Instead, we work long hours to rent tiny 4-bedroom apartments, imbibe $14 cocktails, and squirrel away the remnants for concerts, hobbies, and the occasional adventure. […]

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