Victor Jones reflects on his move from New York to L.A.
You never want to be the last one to leave a party.
There’s something a little pathetic about the guy who doesn’t know when to call it quits and head for the exit, as if he’s looking for something more from the night than it has to offer. Life, in general, is the same, whether it be a job, a relationship, or even a city.
There is an art to knowing when to end things. Pull the plug too soon and you’ll end up haunted by the specter of FOMO and regret. Is there any worse feeling than your coworker coming up to you on a Monday morning and starting a story with, “You won’t believe what happened after you left Friday night”?
Stick around too long and you run the risk of becoming the sad barfly the bartender feels sorry for. “Time to go, buddy. You’ll get ‘em next time. You okay to get home?”
I felt myself gradually becoming that second guy, figuratively speaking, as it pertained to my time living in Los Angeles.
I moved there in January 2020 from New York City, in search of better weather and a fresh start. It wasn’t that I didn’t like New York anymore. In fact, I loved it. It had just become a bit too much after nine years. Too much trash. Too expensive. Too many people in too close proximity.
It’s been said that New York is a playground for the young and the rich. Young people are carefree and having too much fun to worry about the city’s inconveniences while the rich have the money to avoid them. I was increasingly losing my affiliation with the former, yet I hadn’t quite made the leap to the tax brackets of the latter, leaving me in a weird purgatory.
Read the article, Party Over……..here, on Substack.