Haven’t done this in a while:
May 2015: Working on my tenure portfolio and spending a weekend in DC.
May 2010: My fixed-term position became my tenure-track position.
May 2009: Buying an extra house.
May 2005: Preparing to vacate San Francisco.
May 2000: Random food and rants.
May 1998: Visitors and sex.
It is funny how San Francisco burns people out like this. I moved there after you left (Feb 2008) and LOVED it for a long time. I met some of the best friends I’d ever had, it did wonders for my career, and for a few years in the middle of my 8 year tenure there I thought maybe I would stay permanently.
But along the way things started breaking — it wasn’t just that the city was constantly changing (and it is, and does, and in some ways that’s ok), but also that I felt like I was doing the same things over and over again, on the same Castro bar circuit, seeing the same people, but with increasingly diminishing returns. We had leveled up both of our careers and saved money, and even tried to plausibly buy a place to live at a few points around 2012 or so but that dream completely ran away from us. Just in general, the city stopped smiling at me, and I started to feel like I was in a prison.
I moved to LA 5 years ago, and I love it here. There is everything you would ever want in a big city but its not quite as overbearingly expensive and you will never run out of new things to see and do. You can decide you want to spend a weekend being anonymous and doing different things and its possible. You can, quite possibly buy a house (we did, in Silver Lake, right near Sunset Junction). My career is in an even better place here than it was, showing that you don’t necessarily have to be in SF for everything. Over time, many of my friends in SF started to feel increasingly caged in, and many visited us here in LA and came away with the impression that “everyone here seems happier.” At this point, a handful have moved south.
Honestly, I think SF made me a better person, a more optimistic person, a more open-minded person and probably most importantly a more confident person. But I also view it like a lot of people view an ex: fondly, but without any desire to revisit the relationship.
I’ve never had any regrets about moving to SF. It was a very important factor in my life and I’m glad I spent time there.
I’ve also never had any regrets about leaving. And I’m with you on the relationship analogy; I’ve always viewed SF as a love affair that just ran its course and lasted a little too long due to inertia and logistics.
Funny, O get more nostalgic about LA than I do about SF now…