This Tree Now Grows in Brooklyn

It's time. It's really happening. What I've been blogging about for the past month is coming true. The hubby and I are moving to - gulp - Brooklyn. Park Slope, to be exact. I can hear the collective groan as I type this. "We'll never come and visit you...", "Next will be the suburbs...", "WHY???" I have had a slight stomach ache since I found out. Why? I know it's a good thing. We'll have another room, laundry in the building, an elevator, a view of the Empire State Building. And for not much more money than we pay in rent now.

But it's not Manhattan. I've been living here, in Manhattan, for over 10 years. I like telling people where I am from. Manhattan is a statement in and of itself. It will be hard to say that I now live in Brooklyn. It would be easier to say that I am living in Oklahoma. At least that's a legitimate move... out-of-state. This is an in-state move to a lesser borough. I guess at least it's not Queens. Or Staten Island.

Maybe Brooklyn is more me. I just heard that the average cost to buy an apartment in Manhattan is 1.4 million dollars. I'm no millionaire and I don't have mommy and daddy paying my rent. I can't afford this city that I have loved for so long. Maybe I belong in Brooklyn, with the earth shoe wearing families. But I feel dissed. I feel like my city has let me down, has forced me out. It's broken up with me (with a Post-It), threw all of my belongings out onto the lawn and changed its number in one fell swoop. And has already moved on.

Well, I may not be over Manhattan yet, but maybe I will be. Maybe there will be a little more peace in that other borough. Maybe the hubby and I will fall in love with it and upon wandering through the diverse neighborhoods, will find our dream home and end up raising our children as Brooklynites. Perhaps it holds a charm that I don't know of yet. After all, I went to college with more than one kid named Brooklyn, but have yet to meet a Manhattan.