Personal Essay
Leaving New York For Chile Was The Best And Worst Decision I Ever Made
It would be a decade before that one decision fully unfolded with all its tendrils
December 16 marks ten years since I set foot on this land.
This Southern land that is not my own.
When I came to this place, with young hopes and daring dreams, I let it wash over me, until I was washed out.
Since then, it has been a struggle to get back to shore,
stand on my own legs,
breathe above water,
end this mermaid life.
The first time I visited Chile I was twenty-eight, twenty-nine when I moved there. Life in Manhattan, that gleaming island of opportunity and ambition, had been scrubbed of its glimmer, giving way to dirt, drab, and desperation. From the outside, life was good. I had a stable job, my own lease, a recent MA, and a fistful of close friends I had accumulated in my seven years in the city. But the little cracks, the same ones that let roaches into my apartment every 90 days when the baits ran out, grew to gaping holes when the earth quaked even a little.
