The Road I Didn't Take

I went to New York City by myself in March 2026.

For years, New York City had represented a version of life I almost chose.

Back in 2023, I seriously considered moving there. At the time, I was tired of the Bay Area. There were personal reasons, of course, but there was also something about the culture that increasingly felt suffocating to me.

The Bay Area has many things I appreciate. Some of the smartest and most ambitious people I've met live here. But after a while, it can start to feel like everyone is reading from the same script.

You get a tech job. You make good money. Maybe you join a startup. Maybe you buy a house. Eventually you start a family. On weekends, people go hiking, skiing, play tennis, or talk about the latest AI company someone just founded.

I'm obviously oversimplifying, but that was how it felt to me at the time.

What frustrated me wasn't any particular activity. It was the feeling that there was only one acceptable way to build a life. Everything seemed to revolve around optimization: career optimization, financial optimization, even lifestyle optimization. The Bay Area often felt less like a region and more like a giant corporate campus.

New York City felt different. At least I imagined it did.

In my head, New York City was filled with artists, writers, designers, musicians, immigrants, finance people, strange people, interesting people. Tech workers existed there too, but they weren't the entire ecosystem. The city felt bigger than any single industry.

More importantly, I imagined that I would be different there.

That was probably the real attraction.

I wasn't dreaming about New York City. I was dreaming about another version of myself.

For one reason or another, I never moved.

Life kept happening. Work got busy. Then it got busier. There was always something more urgent. The idea stayed in the background for years.

Then in March 2026, I resigned from my job.

For the first time in a very long time, I had nowhere I needed to be.

Looking back, I realized I hadn't really rested for years. Even after difficult periods, I would push through and move on to the next thing. Even after a car accident back in 2019, I didn't give myself much time to stop. There was always another deadline, another responsibility, another reason to keep going.

So once I finally had the space, New York City was the first place I wanted to go.

Not because I wanted to move there anymore. I think I just wanted to see what I had missed. Or maybe what I hadn't.

Before the trip, I found myself thinking about Past Lives. I had watched the film in 2023 and written about it afterward. Like many people, I was drawn to its questions about timing, possibility, and the lives we don't choose.

A few weeks before the trip, I happened to hear a podcast interview where the interviewee mentioned the film again. Something about it lingered with me. Looking back, I think part of the reason I went to New York City was because I wanted to see my own version of a past life, the life I had imagined but never lived.

The funny thing is that the city itself wasn't the most interesting part of the trip.

The first few days, I found myself noticing very ordinary things. People walked quickly. The subway was always crowded. Some people seemed impatient. Everyone looked like they were heading somewhere important.

I remember thinking, Wow, everyone here is in a hurry.

Then a few days later my Achilles tendon started hurting and my calves were swollen. I had been walking close to twenty thousand steps a day.

At first I blamed New York City. Then I realized something slightly embarrassing. The problem wasn't that I was walking too much. It was that I was walking too fast. I kept passing people and rushing to the next destination. Even though I had already quit my job, I was still behaving as if I were late for something.

That was probably the moment the trip shifted for me.

I stopped paying so much attention to New York City and started paying attention to myself.

The moments I remember most now aren't the impressive ones. They're surprisingly small.

Sitting in Dante Park listening to a few songs by Khalil Fong.

Standing near Jane's Carousel in DUMBO, listening to See You from the Past Lives soundtrack while looking out at the river.

Wandering through SoHo without checking the time.

None of those moments had anything to do with becoming a New Yorker. They were just moments when I felt present.

As the trip went on, I started seeing New York City more clearly. Not as a fantasy, but as a city. A real city. A complicated city. A city with wonderful things and exhausting things, just like anywhere else.

I started seeing the Bay Area more clearly, too. It wasn't as bad as I had made it in my mind. New York City wasn't as magical. The Bay Area wasn't as hopeless. Both places were simply places.

I think that's what surprised me most. For years, I had treated New York City almost like a symbol. It represented freedom, reinvention, creativity, and a different life. But once I was actually there, the symbolism started dissolving.

What remained was a city. And what remained was me.

By the time I got to JFK, I felt strangely calm. I wasn't leaving because I was disappointed or tired. I was leaving because the question I'd carried for years no longer felt unanswered.

The road I didn't take wasn't better. It wasn't worse. It was just another road.

For a long time, I thought a different city might help me become a different person. What I came home with was much less dramatic than that.

A different city doesn't automatically create a different life.

You still bring yourself with you.

Maybe that's not a problem.

Maybe that's the point.