At the end of this month, I’ll officially be moving out of the one-bedroom apartment in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn that I’ve called home for the last two years.
For many people, moving is an excruciating process. You’re forced to go through all your belongings—deciding what to keep, what to donate, what to throw away completely. It’s a task fit for the most organized among us, but it’s still exhausting no matter how you slice it.
Here I am, standing in front of my closet, staring at clothes I haven’t worn—or even seen—in years. If I’m honest, I could’ve let them go during my last move. They didn’t need to come with me then, and they certainly don’t need to follow me now. But for one reason or another, in a different time and place, I felt like I couldn’t let go.
This will be my fifth time moving in New York City since I arrived with just a suitcase and a backpack over thirteen years ago. That first move was likely the easiest—I had no real belongings to hold onto, nothing weighing me down. But with each passing year, and more time spent in each place, I started to accumulate more than I could carry on my own back.
Eventually, you find yourself staring down a move that’s going to require actual logistics. You pray that one of your friends owns a car—and is kind enough to help. They agree, of course, before realizing it will require multiple trips between Upper Manhattan and Bushwick. Load the car. Drive 45 minutes. Unload the car. Rinse. Repeat.
That first big New York move can be harrowing—but it’s also kind of illuminating.
You start telling yourself: “I am never doing THAT again.”
Maybe you don’t have the budget for professional movers, so you start looking inward—at your stuff, at your habits. Do I really need all this junk? Could I learn to live more simply? Can I let things go? If you let yourself sit with those questions long enough, you start to uncover something else entirely: a new kind of self-sufficiency. Or maybe—if you’re lucky—you learn how not to be a burden to your friends, who definitely do not want to help you move ever again.
And so, for the next six years you decide to stay put. You’re in a great apartment with friends and you resist all urges to fill it up with a bunch of personal junk you know you don’t need. Every decision becomes: will I be willing (or able) to move this furniture on my own if I have to in the future? Is this something I can keep carrying with me?
The questions start infiltrating other aspects of your life, too. You become really good at doing things alone. Grocery store runs. Movie nights. Live concerts. Crying on the bathroom floor. All of it. The process works wonders if your goals are to focus on your career and personal development but it also hardens you too. Sometimes you need that to survive in a city like New York, but it can also block you from being open to others and new possibilities.
For awhile I started to believe the hard shell was going to be impossible to crack. I became so self-sufficient that it veered on alienating others, limiting the potentialities for new acquaintances and romantic suitors—I was convinced I would remain a bachelor my entire life.
And then something shifted.
Or maybe it wasn’t a “shift” exactly—more like a slow seep. A warmth I didn’t notice at first, or maybe refused to, but it started to settle in. Someone began to show up for me—not just in the fun ways, like dinners and movie nights, but in the quieter, less Insta-gramable moments too.
Like when I got COVID on my birthday last summer, and he showed up anyway. Not with pity or distance, but with flowers, gifts, and a birthday cake with a picture of Lana Del Rey printed on top. We sat on the couch while I coughed and felt gross and worn down, but he stayed. After caring for me that weekend, I told him that I loved him for the first time. Not because I planned it, but because it came out of me naturally—as if my body had finally made room for it.
Since then, it’s been a quiet kind of magic.
I’m not sure that love always arrives with fireworks. Sometimes, it’s just a subtle shift—from protecting yourself to allowing someone else to help carry the weight. It shows up in the little things: French Fries, Aperol Spritzes, shared playlists, or those moments when my cat curls up on his chest instead of mine.
It sounds cheesy and maybe a bit too simplistic (trust me, I know). But I’ve found that the seemingly mundane parts of life can burst into full technicolor simply through shared presence. It’s not the act itself—like crawling out of bed at 7:00 AM on a Saturday to rush to the local diner before it becomes a sea of screaming children—it’s the time spent in that small booth, drinking coffees and talking, that really shines.
And that’s what this next move feels like—it’s not just about logistics anymore. It’s about choosing to build something together.
I’ve spent so much time curating spaces for myself, keeping things simple and minimal, making sure nothing was too heavy to carry alone. But this time, I’m not packing for one. Because this time, I want to build something that lasts. I’m making room for someone else—not just in the closet or the kitchen cabinet, but in the quiet routines that make up a life.
We’re moving in together at the end of the month, and while there’s plenty of cleaning and packing left to do, I’ve found myself lingering more in the emotional weight of it all. The idea that I won’t be waking up alone. That someone else will be there to share the small, silent rituals—feeding the cat, making coffee, choosing what to watch. The fact that we’ll both have keys to the same door.
It’s not flashy, but it feels profound.
There are still closets to sort through, boxes to fill and tape shut, a few too many things I probably don’t need but can’t quite part with just yet. But I’m learning—slowly—that not everything has to be carried alone. Some things, I’m allowed to hand off. And others, I’m ready to leave behind. This next chapter doesn’t start with fireworks or fanfare. It starts with a key, a couch, and a cat curled up between us. It starts with choosing to stay.
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