Last night at a local drawing meet-up, I knew I wanted to contemplate our upcoming trip by drawing the vehicle that will be our home for the next many months. After nearly 8 years, we’re leaving Seattle, not because there’s somewhere else we want to be more (if so, it would be easy because we’d just go there to that place and continue our daily lives), but because it just hasn’t been working out with Seattle for the last couple of years or so. As I begin the descent into the backside of my mid-thirties I can no longer ignore that the life that I dream of (although modest) is completely beyond my reach here in the city. And after some discouraging turns, we just don’t want to keep building a life here.
When we arrived in January of 2011, we were filled with optimism and excitement. We drove in from the south on I-5 with ‘Hello Seattle’ (by Owl City) playing on the radio. Seattle was the place of my dreams and I was so in love. Since then, Seattle has been everything we hoped for and more. But the challenge of rising rents has also been pressing in and we’ve watched the culture of one of our favorite neighborhoods change, and even turn violent. Over the last few years we’ve felt ourselves letting go and have watched doors close as city ‘progress’ displaced us once, then twice from our homes.
As I drew, I thought through many common break-up phrases and considered which ones might be appropriate for my parting with this city that I once loved deeply, but which also increasingly disappoints me again and again:
Seattle, we need to talk.
Where is this going?
I can’t do this anymore.
It’s not you, it’s me? or It’s not me, it’s you! - In truth, Seattle, it’s both of us. Rampant growth and development at the expense of harming and/or displacing local communities? That’s you. Wanting different things out of life now that I’m moving into the backside of my thirties? That’s me. I could go back and forth with the ‘it’s you, it’s me’ stuff, but what it comes down to is that we just aren’t compatible anymore. You aren’t who I fell in love with. And to be honest, I feel like I’ve put in the bulk of the work at trying to make things work out in this relationship. Living here has been one big compromise (studio apartments, no yard for a garden or our dog), and until now it’s been worth it. But it’s never enough, you keep asking for more, and I’ve reached my limit (I really can’t go any smaller than the space I’m living in now, Seattle. I’ve downsized all I can).
So this isn’t working and I’m not willing to do what it takes to make it work anymore.
I just need some time to think about things. I need some space. So I’m hitting the open road to clear my head and re-evaluate. I’ll be back in the Spring for my stuff, and with any luck to move into a hoped-for co-housing situation with some friends. Seattle, if it works out between us it will be because of the generosity, friendship, and community that we’ve found here, not because you’ve changed your ways. Actually, it’s always been because of the generosity of community that we’ve found a home here as long as we have.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s so much that’s still lovely about you and I wouldn’t mind spending more time together. But when we return next Spring, it won’t be because of you. It will be because of the supportive community that we’ve carved out here that we love. Despite the challenges you pose to my family, my friends, and my neighbors, community continues to flourish and thrive here. Seattle, if it works out between us, it will be because of them. Until then, so long.
