Why I Moved 3,000 Miles Away—Alone

When living in New York City became more stressful than satisfying, single writer Sarah Z. Wexler knew she needed out. But first, she had to figure out where to go. Here, the first chapter of her ongoing moving diary.

By Cosmopolitan

When my grandmother was 26, she moved from Texas to New Jersey for my grandfather's business. When my mom was 22, she moved from New Jersey to Virginia, because that's where my dad got into grad school. When I was 25, I felt proud to reverse the pattern-my boyfriend and I moved from Pittsburgh to New York City because I was the one with a job offer.

When we broke up a few months later, I bonded with my crew of single ladies. I spent years finagling half-price tickets to Broadway, paying $14 for cocktails, and apologizing to my Saint Bernard for our 400-square-foot apartment with long walks in Central Park. Although it was more Girls than Sex and the City in terms of budget, I did get to interview Manolo Blahnik. I was living the dream I'd had since I was 14: reside in NYC, work for a magazine, and write books. My friends couldn't get over the fact that my job included going to photo shoots and interviewing celebrities, and some days, neither could I. Although I used to love to cook, I made over my life in a vigilantly nondomestic way-I ate from plastic containers in the office cafeteria for breakfast and lunch and ordered takeout or met friends for dinner. I was too busy, and too empowered, to be bothered. I worked at the frenetic pace of the city, putting in 10-hour days, hoping to prove my worth and be assigned bigger stories.

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In five years, I'd also published two books I'd written during the nights and weekends. New York is a city of strivers, fighters, and achievers, and being around so much drive and creativity pushed me to put in more, more, more. But there were cracks in my armor. I wanted to write, not edit, so when I looked up the ladder at magazines and saw it was mostly editing and managing, I wasn't sure what to do. Work-life balance was something we wrote about, but I didn't know a soul in the city who had it. I started to realize that no matter what I accomplished, it may not be worth what I was giving up.

In the weeks after my 30th birthday, I noticed I was crying a lot. When the subway rerouted and dumped me a mile from home on the day I was carrying three heavy books and wearing my pointiest heels, I cried. When the exterminator came to deal with the rat problem in my building's basement, I sobbed. I left the city to visit my parents, where I walked in the woods and bawled when I saw a bird that wasn't a pigeon. On the drive back, emerging from the Lincoln Tunnel into swerving, honking taxis, I cried yet again. It suddenly became easy to imagine myself at 40, still utterly single, still waiting an hour for brunch, still not able to scrape together enough money for an apartment with a backyard...or even one without a basement rat colony.

Before that, I'd never been a crier. In a fight or flight situation, I'd always chosen fight-when someone smashed into me on the street, I'd cuss them out, not retreat. But after five years, everything that had been exciting about the city left me feeling defeated. I was fighting for a dryer at the Laundromat, to get a promotion at a job that meant more editing and even less writing, for a spot on the subway just to get home. I used to throw elbows, but now those daily frustrations were throwing me over an emotional cliff. I'd chased the dream, but it wasn't as fulfilling as I'd hoped. In a city of millions, I felt run-down and lonely. Living there was no longer worth the fight.

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When I started telling people my plan to move, I wondered if they'd think I couldn't hack it in the city (as a high-achieving striver, this was the worst thing someone could say). But did I have the chutzpah to do it without a man offering me a reason to leave or the support of coming along? When I was a teenager, I assumed I wouldn't need a husband, because making it as a writer would be enough to satisfy me (it wasn't). In my living-single 20s, my girlfriends and I promised each other we'd meet The Guy in the next few years, and everything would change (it didn't). It finally hit me: If I wanted to change my life, I'd have to do it alone.

For the next few months, I played "Are you my mother?" with cities, attending conferences and weddings to try on places like Boston, Chicago, and San Diego, but none of them felt right. Honestly, the lush green scenery, industrial bridges, and chill music from the opening of IFC's show Portlandia made me schedule a reading for my new book in Portland. I fell in love. The crowd, drinking craft beer in a 1920s theater, cheered me on with a kind of enthusiasm and earnestness I hadn't felt in New York in years. I stayed with a friend, who'd also moved from NYC a year before, and her smile and skin looked brighter.

We drove 45 minutes out of the city and went snowshoeing on a mountain, the clouds of mist hanging low over the trees like I'd wandered into the serene cover of the bookSnow Falling on Cedars. That night, we made friends in line at a 24-hour doughnut shop known for its hot pink skull decor and oddball flavors like Cap'n Crunch. I felt like I'd finally found my place, where I could have the creativity, hyper-literacy, quirkiness, and foodie culture of a city, along with access to farmers' markets and mountains. Plus, no one would look down on my desire to make jam, to wear Converse instead of Louboutins. Here, people made a conscious effort to have time for things other than work. No one even asked me what I did for a living, let alone which house published my books. Coming from New York, this was revelatory. Here, I could be defined by who I am, not what I do.

Against the advice of my mother, I didn't go back to Portland to "make sure" before I moved there. I'd found an exit strategy from my stagnant unhappiness, and I refused to overthink it. I signed a lease through Craigslist on a dusty blue 1920s bungalow with original wood floors and crystal doorknobs, small luxuries I'd never had in New York, like a dishwasher and a washer-dryer, and a grassy backyard for my dog. The night I said good-bye to my friends, I couldn't stop crying (different tears than my city-induced breakdowns) and kissing their cheeks, both sad to leave them and panicked I was making a mistake-who moved 3,000 miles away all alone? My hands shaking in bed that night, I told myself I could always come back-the only thing I'd lose was the $2,000 I paid the movers.

In the morning, I took a taxi to the airport. As the blocks I'd walked a hundred times sped by, my stomach was a hard fist, but my eyes were dry. This time, I chose flight. Next month: Culture shock. See what happens when Sarah relearns how to drive and meets people who are nice (too nice? why are they being so nice?!) in Portland.

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