Leaving the Life I Built

I left suburban New Jersey at 21 with an unshakable conviction that New York City was where my life would begin. I moved there to become an actress; waitressing at night, working as a personal assistant by day, and nannying on weekends. One winter, in the middle of a blizzard, I rushed from the Upper West Side for one employer, cut through midtown for another, then headed downtown for an audition. My boots were soaked with slush, my fingers numb from the cold—but I didn’t think twice. New York pulls you in and dares you to prove you belong, promising that if you can keep up, it might just give you the life you came for.

Years later, I worked behind the scenes in media, as an agent and publicist at top entertainment companies. It felt like crossing into adulthood—but it wasn’t any easier. I swapped auditions for meetings, but the mantra stayed the same: don’t fall behind, prove your worth. Throughout my twenties and thirties, I built an impressive network and career, earning my way into rooms I once dreamed about—rubbing shoulders with celebrities and high-level executives. It never occurred to me to want anything different.

Until I did.

At 36, I flew to Colorado for work. When the plane landed, it was as if something in me immediately shifted. The mountains, the quiet, the air. The landscape felt expansive in a way I’d never experienced, like there was space to breathe. For the first time, it occurred to me that there were other ways to live life. I’d only ever known one—the kind that never slowed down.

Back in New York, that realization stayed with me as I kept pace with a life that was starting to wear me down. Early mornings, late nights—it all felt increasingly out of step with what I wanted. I found myself fantasizing about something gentler, imagining what those days might look like. Slowly, the idea of trading skyscrapers for mountains took hold. Over time, that longing grew harder to ignore.

In January of 2020, at 38, after 17 years in New York City, I left everything I knew to follow that fantasy. I packed my life into a moving truck and headed west, leaving behind everything I’d built for something unknown. There was no plan, no certainty—just an instinct I trusted. The same voice that once led me to New York was now telling me to leave it. I listened.

I arrived in Colorado in the middle of winter, unlocked the door to my apartment, and stepped into a blank space. I unpacked slowly, creating order out of the unfamiliar. Outside my windows, snow blanketed everything in white, softening the world into silence.

But instead of fearing the quiet, I leaned into it. It felt calm. It felt earned.

There was nowhere to rush to, no one to keep up with: just me, with my whole life ahead of me at the start of a new chapter.

Eventually, I found my new rhythm and six years later, I’ve created a new life that feels steady and intentional. I’ve traded subway rides for nature walks. Happy hours for evenings at home. DoorDash orders for nights in the kitchen. I found a community. I became a writer. I chose something uncertain and created something I now feel sure of.

Leaving New York wasn’t a rejection of the life I’d built. It was an acknowledgment that I had outgrown it. I’m grateful for what it gave me—ambition, resilience, and the belief that I could create something from nothing.

There isn’t just one path, one version of success, or one right way to live. The possibilities are far wider than we let ourselves believe—and often, the hardest part is allowing ourselves to imagine something different, then finding the courage to pursue it. Because no one hands us the life we want.

We must build it, slowly and deliberately, one choice at a time.

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Leaving the Life I Built

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