Brooke Baldwin

Has the past year been an exercise in futility? Did I make a wise choice in leaving the hustle and bustle of New York?

This has really been on my mind lately and I think it will take me awhile to come up with a good answer. In a real sense, yes, I made the right choice. Over eight years of living in New York took a toll on my tree-hugging psyche. One year of Louisville has showed me that most of the people in the world are here to just get by.

And what’s wrong with just getting by?  Probably not much. I’d like to think that I can slow down and be one of the lumpen proletariat but that only lasts for a day or so and then I am right back to pushing myself.  Louisville is helping me to remember that I can push at 80% and still beat the pack.

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Almost one year has passed since I left the Big Apple in search of a different lifestyle and so far it has exceeded and at the same time not met my expectations.

What I did not anticipate was the ease with which I would adjust to the life of a boring worker drone. This has been a year to slow down and re-center myself, to build up reserves (of a sort), and to take stock of my life.

Here’s what I have learned: it’s harder to make friends when everyone is married with children and I am not and it’s easier to save money when everything costs less. That’s about all I have learned. All the other lessons in the past 11 months have been reaffirmations of things I already knew: good people and friends are hard to come by, my instincts are usually right and should be trusted, and being outside in the fresh air is the best therapy.

Moving to Louisville has given me a place to stop and slow down for awhile, a place to enjoy the pace of an almost-southern city. And living here has shown me how good I had it in New York. New York was a place with a lot of friends, a lot of opportunity, and a lot of stress - while Louisville is the opposite.

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