No Goodbyes!

I asked everyone at my goodbye party not to say “goodbye” when they left.

After four transformative years in New York, we’re moving to London.

We moved to New York in the summer of 2021, taking the Amtrak up and carrying three suitcases each. We spent our first two years in a studio in Morningside Heights. We became incredibly comfortable with having little space to ourselves, and rarely cooked fish, since it would stink up the room for weeks.

In those first two years, we spent a lot of time with catch-all friends, flung from the far reaches of our lives. Lennon spent most of those two years outside of the city, working as an actor, playing nearly every Shakespearean hero, clown, and villain.

I started this blog and did improv comedy for a while, which we’ll refer to lovingly as the “dark days.” I dyed my hair blonde on a random Wednesday and decided to dye it back on a random Thursday.

I worked ten jobs in my first two years in the city, before eventually working full-time as an assistant to a talent agent. I did that for nine months, while juggling teaching part-time and writing my second one-woman show.

I had a cute little mental break in March of 2023, and quit that job, and we went backpacking through Europe for two months.

We moved to Brooklyn! I produced and performed my solo show. I started teaching Pilates full-time in Williamsburg. I wrote a few screenplays, a couple of half-baked TV pilots, and a short story or two. I’m working on a novel that, at this time of writing, I hate. I’ll learn to love it again when I get through the 2nd act.

Lennon took a break from touring to focus on fun. He rubbed shoulders with celebrities at his job and regaled me with the stories. (John Hamm? An asshole.) He got really into Sarah J. Maas, and eventually convinced me to read them. He perfected a hummus recipe and played in a rock band. (Listen to Pebbles Palace here!)

He auditioned for grad schools and got into the final round of callbacks at Juilliard. We dreamt of moving back to the Upper West Side.

We made new friends, lost a few, and reconnected with old ones. Became regulars of the baristas at Loveless. (Shout out to AP!)

We ran into people on the street we tried to avoid, and met up with friends during the rare time our schedules aligned. More of our friends moved up to New York, and some moved away.

We wrote our initials in wet cement, twice. (One on Jefferson St, and another on Bushwick Ave.)

We got stuck on a downtown 3 train that had caught fire.

We took the J train to Rockaway.

We went to every museum and dozens of Happy Hours.

We watched a dozen sunsets slip over the skyline, past the Hudson.

We went to every concert we could, and got blisters on our feet from dancing.

We got in fights with our landlord when the heat kicked out in the winter.

We went to the New York Public Library and tried to find my Grandma’s name in the book of immigrants. (She, too, changed her name multiple times, so no, I didn’t find her on that trip.)

We broke up once, for a singular afternoon, and then got locked in a bedroom (not our own) that night, and had to have the neighbor break us out. We made up some time between the door’s shut and our rescue.

We got really into bird watching in McGolrick Park. Well, Lennon did, I mostly went for the dogs.

We voted in the mayoral primary! HOTTIES FOR ZOHRAN!

We got engaged in Central Park, near Shakespeare’s Garden, where we’d spent our first Saturday in the city.

Lennon got into graduate school. We cried tears of joy. But we weren’t moving to the Upper West Side. We were moving to London. Then we really cried.

We lived there, and now we’ve left.

Moving to New York was my life’s goal.

New York was the setting of all of my favorite films growing up. It was the site of my mother’s childhood and then again her young adulthood. I had family and history there. I visited New York for the first time before I can even remember, and have made a yearly pilgrimage since.

Most of my life, I was waiting eagerly for my one-way ticket to New York. I knew New York wasn’t waiting for me, but I was waiting for my life to start.

And four years ago, my life started. It was less glamorous than a five-year-old’s fantasy. But God, do I love it.

I was ready for New York, and I’m not ready to leave.

So no one was allowed to say “goodbye” at my goodbye party.

Because I’m not leaving.

Sure, Lennon got into grad school in London!

Yes, two years ago on that backpacking trip, we whispered to each othe,r “God, it would be cool to do grad school here.”

Yes! I applied for my Irish citizenship, and I’m currently awaiting its acceptance.

Once I have it, will I be able to live in work in the UK and the EU uninhibited by visas? YES!

Will Lennon be an Irish citizen once we get married next year? Indeed, he will!

Are we moving there in less than a month?! Well, yeah, sort of…Lennon’s moving there first, and then I’m following once I have my citizenship…it’s a whole thing.

Does any of that mean New York isn’t home?

No.

Because it’s not goodbye. Because I’m coming back.

My life started in New York, and I’ll never live without it.