Should I Break Up With NYC?

(Note: This essay was originally posted on NYCTourGuy.com, a blog I managed when I lived in New York City. That blog will be taken down soon, and I’ll be moving all of that content here, dated as of its original posting.)

In 1996, I was dumped for the first time. My college girlfriend, Lauren, broke it off with me after two years, and my immediate reaction was: Good!

A couple of weeks later, eh, not so good. I experienced emotions I’d never felt in my life. Loss. Heartbreak. Agony. Holy shit this is horrible, I’d think while bawling. I need her back. I did get her back, if only for a short while, but that’s a story for another day. The point is, I learned for the first time what they meant when they say “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone“.

The thing is, I never really fell in love with Lauren. She knew that, which is why she did the right thing when she shitcanned me for the final time in 1999. I simply didn’t know how to properly assess the feelings I had. I thought the sadness meant I loved her. It actually was just the sadness of losing a friend.

Fast forward to today. I’m madly in love with my wife Evi. So even though we’ve been together a couple of years, and we sometimes argue, and we sometimes would rather do our own individual things, I’m very keenly aware of the thermonuclear devastation to my very being that would occur if I ever lost her. I’ve actually imagined it in my head, and it’s not pretty.

Which brings me to New York City. I have a love/hate relationship with the Big Apple. In 2014, I decided to give away everything I owned to move here and do comedy. I’d live life just above the poverty level, forgo pursuing any relationships with women, and focus on my beloved art form. Most people who know me know this story, but almost nobody knows that a few weeks before I moved, I received a phone call from my old Branch Broker, offering me the opportunity to work in mortgages again.

“The real estate market is back,” Bob said. “The opportunity is there to make a lot of money. You should go get your license and come on board.”

I’ve experienced success and failure in a lot of ventures, but the only thing I’ve ever done that gave me strong financial success was brokering mortgages. It was incredibly tempting. But I turned it down.

“I gotta go pursue my dream, man.” I said. I packed my Honda Accord and left.

Bob isn’t just my old Branch Broker, he’s a lifelong friend. So we talk probably once every other month, and he’ll give me an update as to how the business is and how much he’s making. And then I’ll look around my shitty un-air conditioned apartment with the noisy neighbor upstairs, and remember the nice house and fancy sports car I used to own. Then I’ll remember my dream.

Oh, yeah, my dream. You know how I was going to forgo relationships? Yeah, Evi threw a monkey wrench in that. I met her exactly 42 days after I moved here. Comedy hasn’t been a priority ever since.

So why the hell am I here?

To be clear, Evi never discourages comedy; in fact quite the opposite. She wants me to go on stage more. But I know where that path leads. Comedians do what they do because they love it. They know there’s only a .001% chance of “making it”, and the other 99.999% of comics mostly starve. And while I was perfectly happy to take my .001% chance when I was single and the only person at risk, I just can’t do that as a married man. I want the best for her. I want the best for my future family.

I’m sick of being poor. 

So I’m in the process of getting my Florida Mortgage Broker license. The owner of my old company, Eric, is working with me so that I can do it sort of part-time from up here, while traveling down to Florida quite a bit, especially during season.

I know where this could potentially go. I have a huge network of friends, and am very good at building business relationships. If I make an effort, I’ll start having a very strong income in very little time. Which means I’ll spend more and more time in Florida. Which means it’ll seem kind of pointless to keep a place in NYC.

So I’ve started imagining what it would be like to leave here. And it hurts. I’ll miss the sound of the subway. I’ll miss the terrific food. I’ll miss the cross-section of so many cultures. I’ll miss Central Park, Long Beach, and bumping into famous comics performing at the same mic I am. I think leaving here would cause me serious heartache.

But would it be the sadness kind, or the thermonuclear devastation kind?

Eh, maybe I’ll never have to find out. We’ll see.

~J