I can't with moving again in NYC

Almost 2 years ago I went outer-borough and decided to move to Astoria, Queens. I was young, I was bright eyed, and although at first very hesitant to move off the island of Manhattan I soon found myself really liking the above ground trains in Queens that I could talk on my cellphone on. It wasn't long before I was completely inebriated by the intoxicating smell of street pitas and Greek pastries and I found myself very happy with my one-bedroom respite on the western tip of long island. I painted the walls orange, my favorite color, and finally hung a shower curtain in my bathroom which was deemed "too gay" by my previous roomies when I was living in hells kitchen. For the first time in my life I was living alone. I was comfortable, I could go-on-with-my bad-shower-curtain and ain't no one was gonna stop me. It's still hanging there now.

Fast-forward to today and I'm getting ready to pack up this apartment that in 2008 signified my independence for a 2 bedroom apartment somewhere in Manhattan with my friend Dane.

It's a little bananas that I'm now moving from Queens to Manhattan in order to save $$ but hey that's the way the housing market muffin crumbles. We havent even begun to look at any places yet but the idea of moving back in with someone, especially a best friend, has me a little verklempt and I can't. I mean the idea of moving in general is itself a pain in the ass but I feel like im closing the door on a period of my life where sleeping with the bedroom door open had meant I was successful. I remember when I first made a label for the mailbox in the hall and it just said G. PAYNE on it and I deliberated over and over again about what font it should be in and what color and size because this life by myself in Queens was a reflection of me and only me and no one else was there to carry the burden of tenants torn apart in my new building over a potentially tacky mailbox label.

So how'd this all happen? I was miserable in an accounting job that I wouldnt necessarily call, "dead-end" or "go-nowhere" cuz it was sure going somewhere but it was just somewhere I knew I didnt want to be. So upset I was with the direction I was headed that for a while I made my unhappiness with accounting known on the job and with good reason I was fired and left to fend for myself with the help of severance and Uncle Sam's funemployment. I worked a series of pay by day television production jobs (some for no pay at all!) and slowly managed to move my resume into the direction of somewhere I did want to be. Eventually (about 5 months after being fired) my resume was good enough to be hired as a full time production assistant with Biography and I am still there today, quite happy making other people's lives just as interesting as mine.

But the price of happiness in this city sure can be draining. Making such a move in these economic times has taken it's toll for sure. I am making considerably less than I was when I was handling reconciliations and employee reimbursements. I have to pay for my health insurance as I am a freelancer and now I am debating going without it entirely and just not getting sick. I dont go out to dinner as much. I haven't been on vacation in a year. And I guess that's good cuz I cant afford much of a vacation these days anyway.

So here we are. Poor but happy. They say money can't buy happiness but can you really be happy in this town if you can't afford to do all it has to offer? Millionaire heiress Casey Johnson died yesterday and all her riches couldn't save her life. Do we need personal disasters in life to make us grateful for what we have?

At work today I was researching the Chernobyl disaster. In April 1986 a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union blew up and sent dangerous radiation out in the air for miles and miles around. People in nearby cities were told that in order to escape the damaging effects of radiation poisoning they were to evacuate their homes they had lived in all their lives and flee overnight, forever. It is still considered the worst nuclear power disaster in the history of this planet.

The drama I am attaching to packing up a one bedroom in Queens and moving to Manhattan with two months notice all the while transferring my cable and movie channels and forwarding my netflix is by far no Chernobyl exodus. We do what we have to in order to be safe, and hopefully in the long run, happy. Yet somehow my fall from financial grace last year at the time felt like my own nuclear power meltdown. And while today I know I will be safe regardless what borough I am living in, the people of Chernobyl weren't so lucky and though they relocated miles and miles away, some even in other countries, the damage had been done and they are to live with the effects of their radioactive meltdown for the rest of their lives for generations to come.

So I think it's helpful to see that all disasters - from the minor to the globally catastrophic - share something in common. They all breed a change in a persons life, helping them to move in a direction they may not have gone on their own. And does one come out a stronger person as a result of the move? I guess that's up to the situation but you cant argue that they are indeed probably safer than they would be had they stayed put.

So come February 1st, I'll be giving up my orange apartment and perfect mailbox label for a 2 bedroom compromise. Dane will be there for me to share in the burden of our new mailbox label however there will have to be discussion as to whose name is first on it. He said he'll allow an orange wall but just one and we'll pick the shade together. I suppose some days I'll be able to sleep with my bedroom door open but instead of it signaling success it will mean Dane's gone home to Pittsburgh for the weekend.

Maybe I won't need to bring my shower curtain though; perhaps we can pick out one together.