I don't know where to live.
Before the global pandemic, I split my time between New York City and Des Moines, lowa. I moved to the Midwest in 2013 for a job that was nice while it lasted, discovering a much easier place than suburban Manhattan to raise three kids without going broke. I decided to stay until they were done with high school, even when my work took me back to New York. This was not as hard as it sounds. Commuting 1,000 miles turned out to be a handy way to navigate a dying marriage while racking up heaps of frequent flyer miles.
So here I am, newly single, my nest nearly empty, and sooner than expected. My youngest quickly concluded that #onlinelearningsucks and front-loaded her requirements to graduate high school in January. My oldest managed to hold on to her job in entertainment in Los Angeles during the pandemic and even qualify for employer-sponsored health insurance, a level of badass adulting any parent can appreciate. My middle child graduates from college in December and will stay put, working and living with friends until graduate school next fall. Forced to spend March through August stuck at home, she is still recovering from the trauma of too much togetherness.
In short, they are launched, I am free, and because I work remotely, I can go anywhere. This is both a first-world privilege and a huge conundrum.
Many of my friends are feeling similarly untethered, and it's not just the pandemic. Some are married empty nesters: Do they sell the big house with the high property taxes or hang on to the space for Casper -- the ghost grandchild that may materialize someday? They've spent decades accruing the sentimental trappings of a particular life. The mudroom wall is still marked with pencil lines tracking the kids’ heights year after year. It is unthinkable to erase the miracle it represents under a fresh coat of paint.
Other friends are single and childless, and leaving New York City after decades there. They haven't soured on the place so much as feel like they've done it to death. Their exodus has complicated my plan to move back to the city, and I am no longer sure I can afford its charms, with half of my assets skittering away in the divorce. New York has become slightly less charming in recent years anyway, increasingly devoid of a creative middle class. Maybe post-pandemic the grittiness (and affordability) will be renewed. But I’m not sure I'll move back full-time.
Some days I decide I'll be a digital nomad — start the journey in Asia, where I have never been, and Eat, Pray, Love and work my way toward Europe. I spend hours exploring apps that assemble tribes of people doing the same. Other days I endlessly surf Zillow for homes in lowa City — because my sister and brother-in-law are there, and a community of writers, and it's cheap, friendly and liberal. I also ponder moving to the state where my youngest wants to attend college, to establish residency and save tens of thousands of dollars on tuition over four years. But prioritizing money over my life — especially when I'm entering the last third of it — seems myopic at best.
Still other days I decide I will just stay put and buy the gorgeous mid-century home I'm renting in Des Moines with its wall of windows overlooking the woods, the river, the gracefully bounding deer. I watch the leaves — recently luminous and golden, now the dull hue of potato peels and ash — vibrating on the branches, holdouts against the early winds of winter. Then I remember it is abominably fucking cold in lowa from Thanksgiving through April. I decide I will move to Florida, where I know almost no one, but would enjoy ocean views and zero state income tax.
Time is running out. Decisions must be made after the holidays.
I am open to suggestions.
Published in The Woolfer (now known as The Reveler)
