Student Blog: How To Go Back When You Don't Know How

After a year and a half of living in my hometown, it's nearly time to go back to New York. I moved to New York in 2018, and I lived there until the first months of the pandemic. So, the question is, why do I feel more nervous about going back than I felt when I first left my hometown?

For the majority of last year, all that my friends and I talked about was how we couldn't wait to go back, and I genuinely wanted to, but for some reason, now that I have last than a month, I feel more nervous than excited.

I remember everything like I just came back for a holiday, but at the same time, it feels like I have never left Izmir after high school. Going back to old habits is really easy, and the feeling of familiarity and comfort draws me, probably like it does most people. I never left my city because I didn't like it here. In fact, Izmir is my favorite place on earth. The weather is perfect; I know where everything is. Maybe because it's my home, but I do belong here. But as much as I like it here, I also feel stuck.

New York makes me anxious; 90% of the time, I don't feel at home. I hate the weather; it's too rainy and too cold for me. Everyone's in a rush, there are countless times people yelled at me for being too happy. But it also makes me feel alive.

When I'm in Izmir, I can see my life too clearly, which is something I don't like. I need a sense of uncertainty to keep me motivated; I like living spontaneously, and I like not knowing what I would be doing or where I would be in a year or so. New York gives me that feeling of living on the edge.

This is normally what makes my returns to New York easier; it makes me fill with excitement, but this time, the excitement is mixed with nervousness, and I really don't like it. I don't know if it's the fact that I have spent a year stuck in my home, but I feel like the sense of spontaneity I have in New York can be too much for me right now.

I've been spending the last two months on the beachside of my hometown, and I am mostly living on my own again. All winter, I thought that I would directly go back to my normal restless self, and for the most part, I did; but as much freedom as I have here, I still am living within certain lines, and it is much easier to think I am acting freely when I have limited options.