A love letter to all the ships that sailed
nostalgia for the people you could have been just reminds you you're alive.
I went back east this week for a work offsite. It feels very wide-eyed small-town girl to say it, but I get so nostalgic every time I come to the east coast.
My dad grew up in Albany, New York, and he would skip school on Fridays to go into the city and smoke weed with his friends. It’s one of my favorite facts about him since it’s so incongruous with the conservative household he and my mom chose to raise us kids in. I also like imagining him as a carefree, troublemaking teenager. It humanizes him a bit.
I grew up going to New York every summer. Most people mean the city when they say that, I mean the state. My family and I would fly out to Albany, head upstate to Lake George, and spend anywhere from a week to 3 weeks on the lake, just enjoying how glorious the summers were up there and how much the Adirondacks had to offer.
I love and have always loved New York state, and have been to the city many times. When I was a teenager, I was convinced I was going to go to college in New York City and finally realize some part of myself that I had always felt would be better off in a city.
Growing up in the mountains like I did has a lot to offer, but I also found it pretty isolating. In my experience, mountain towns don’t always have the concept of a neighborhood or a community. I wanted so desperately to belong to a neighborhood, and to feel like it was my extended family.
I visited NYU in the winter of my junior year and was completely sold on it. I applied to NYU my senior year of high school. New York City was going to be my chance to leave my small mountain town and finally learn how to be a city girl.
My application came back from NYU. I had a spot.
My New York fantasy could come true if I was willing to go into debt to the tune of $200,000 for a 4-year college degree.
I wasn’t willing to take on that much debt. I had a much more appealing offer from the University of Denver where I’d be able to graduate completely debt-free. Denver didn’t hold nearly the same romantic appeal to me as New York. In 2012, it wasn’t quite yet the hot destination it’s become today.
But I went with Denver anyways, even though it was a bit the boring choice. I’m glad I had the wherewithal to choose the more financially sound option before my brain was completely done developing—that was a stroke of luck that really could have gone the other way.
I made the right choice. DU was a great college experience. I met my closest friends there. I got a degree I’m proud of, even if I don’t use it directly in my day job1. I came into my own at DU. I put down roots in Denver that I will not and do not want to rip up anytime soon. Denver has become my home. I am fiercely proud to be from Colorado and a proud resident of Denver. This surprises me to think about, because I really always thought I’d move away from Denver at some point. But now, I really don’t want to leave Denver at all.
That doesn’t stop me from getting nostalgic for the life I could have had in New York. I think a lot about the different types of people I could have met if I went to school in The City™️ instead of in Denver, which isn’t exactly known for its diversity. I could have gotten much more into the theater scene in New York, which is undeniably more active there than in Denver and is a lifelong interest of mine. I probably could have gone to Europe more frequently since flights are so much cheaper from New York than from Denver. I could have taken the train somewhere every weekend if I wanted to and lived out every moody-poet-on-a-train fantasy that I’ve ever had.
These types of what-ifs used to make me sad. They used to make me wonder if I made the wrong choice. If maybe I was somehow missing out by choosing to stay close to home, choosing the college degree with no debt over the one that felt really exciting, and the city I liked well enough over the one I felt bursting enthusiasm for.
Now, these what-ifs exist alongside a beautifully rich and full life that I have painstakingly built in Denver. I am lucky to feel very connected to my neighborhood in Denver. I'm an avid camper and skiier in some of the most beautiful terrain in the world. I have been in a very fulfilling relationship for nearly 5 years. I’ve gotten to see Denver grow into a very desirable place to live.
I still get hit with the what-ifs when I go back east though. The difference is, I have a lot more kindness towards that feeling now.
I used to think that I wouldn’t feel nostalgic if I had made the right choice. But now, I think I feel that nostalgia because I have a lot of zest for life, and that means I imagine what other outcomes might have been like whenever I’ve found myself at a crossroads. I would like to always feel that much excitement and imaginativeness towards life, because I have also felt the opposite way, and it’s a terrible place to be.
There have been lots of times where I have allowed a ship to sail that I could have boarded instead.
There was the time where I was very close to packing up my life to join the Peace Corps, and my health problems kept me from doing that. There was a time I was offered a slot in a selective teaching program promising to turn my career around after I did a year as a remedial math teacher in middle school, and I turned it down because classroom teaching didn’t feel right anymore. The list goes on and on, as it does for pretty much all of us.
There’s not much point in dwelling on the negative side of FOMO, in regretting what might have been if you had sailed on one ship instead of another one. You can only take one ship at each juncture! There’s no way to avoid this limitation in life. “That ship has sailed” isn’t a negative statement, but simply a neutral one. We can’t do everything.
Feeling nostalgic for the choices I could have made reminds me that there is a part of me who likes chasing new experiences and knowing the world is so much bigger than what is dreamt of in my philosophy. I feel kindness towards the FOMO because the FOMO is simply appreciating that there’s more than one way to have a successful life. I can just only choose one.
Sometimes I will let ships sail, but they leave traces behind I can still appreciate. New York will always be there for me to wander the streets in the fall, and maybe pine a bit after what could have been. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s nice to get a pulse check every so often.
I know so few people who use their degrees professionally. Kind of validating, I guess?
Yep, can’t tell you the number of times I wished I could just copy and paste myself and let each version live an alternate life