Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.

Insight: Staying

As the weight of the future and its expectations grow, I find it harder to rationalize leaving the place that’s changed my life — expressed through a moment of a song of the same name

the-echo-insight-staying.png

"Maybe in six months I make it work in a perfect world: I live in San Francisco, write what I want, make new friends and earn enough money to see my old ones whenever I'd like."


"Maybe I would be okay if I let this go forever."

Ask me three months ago, a week ago, yesterday and I was ready to leave. 

There was no other option. I'm graduating in spring, and I'm the only person I know who isn't then going to grad school. It's really f---ing scary.

I've been most scared, though, of settling: meaning taking a job just because it's easy and not chasing a dream. I chased a dream before by leaving my entire life behind in Arkansas, and it was the best decision I ever made.

READ MORE: Insight: Music makes me nostalgic for a home I didn't know I missed

But now I'm stuck again, scared I either won't get an opportunity anywhere or scared I get the perfect job in the perfect city and I have no one to share it with. 

I love what I do, I'm endlessly excited about my career and my future, but I don't know if I can start over again. I've pushed these thoughts off for a while; now leaving has snuck up on me.

My roommates aren't graduating until next spring. All my friends will be here at least another year. I'll hopefully be working in another city this summer, and I don't know how I'd work an apartment lease when I get back. I won't make enough money to live alone.

So can I stay? That solution hasn't come easy. I especially don't want to settle for a job I hate and potentially waste an opportunity to go somewhere incredible, to do something real

Arizona and me

Admitting I don't really care about this state, this city, its skyline, its sprawl, isn't difficult, but deflating. There's nowhere here I want to work or settle, nothing that I've felt charm me in the romantic way only 'true' cities can.

I'm upset that I've made such a life for myself in a buffer city. It's not the home I go back to every Christmas, and it's not the place I'll spend the majority of my life. 

But what else would I have done? I have to stop myself as I become upset at how great my blessings are and how much I'm going to miss them. Being upset with something good for being fleeting defeats the entire purpose of life. 

More than anything, I don't want to be complacent. It's a feeling I've always had to proactively fight off. These are all feelings I understand about myself, and that's why I knew — as hard as it was — I would have to just take a deep breath and leave. 

So despite all these issues, this was just a hard truth. Until now. 

*

I knew something was wrong when I got my first summer internship rejection (thanks, Washington Post) and felt a true sigh of relief. But I let the feeling pass, chalking it up to stress and the usual unknown. 

I've been so set in the desensitizing reality of leaving again that I haven't been able to process anything. And as I was driving to class the other day, it just hit me. 

I've felt so much true joy this school year that I don't want to throw it away anymore. Paired with the given stress, anxiety and occasional unhappiness, I feel the growth that I've experienced over the last year and a half continues to exponentially return.

And suddenly, I don’t want to leave. This is also a terrifying reality to face. The thoughts swirl back: "What if I waste my one chance by being complacent?"

Stopping for a second means the "writer aesthetic" creeps back into my mind. I want to run to New York City, chain-smoke my way to an early grave, say some strange and poetic things in sparse interviews and create something truly memorable. 

But that aesthetic has one important side effect (well, besides the premature death and all that): It's almost always distinctly lonely. And as attractive as that somehow sounds in theory, I know I can't do it. At least not yet. 

Maybe in six months, I make it work in a perfect world: I live in San Francisco, write what I want, make new friends and earn enough money to see my old ones whenever I'd like. 

Watch the waves

Until that happens, until I find that perfect chance, I want to stay — at least one more year, before my friends all disperse and this community I've grown to love is gone, with or without my choice of departure.

The ocean is rising, but I'd like to sit on the beach just a little longer. I'd like to take a few more breaths of this dry desert air before I say goodbye. 

As cliché as it sounds, I know choosing love is the answer — which I mean as truly as written. 

If I were a viewer watching myself in a coming-of-age movie, I know I'd be rooting toward the climactic moment of missing the flight and choosing to stay. Maybe that perspective matters. 

It's going to torture me. I'm going to finally cry about it, I'm going to let the weight of the world crush me for a bit and I'm going to endlessly worry about the "right choice."

And as much as it will hurt, I smile even now, a now in which I could not be more full. I smile at love had, not weep at love lost. 

I know this feeling will change as the circumstances do. While I sit watching these waves, I will sway whichever way I'm pushed, whichever way the wind finally blows. 

But I think it's important to document the here, the now, the confusion, the solidity. 

I don't know how I'm going to feel in a day, a week, three months. But right now I long and I yearn, more than any feeling I've felt in a while — to stay.

I need Arizona, with all its flaws and my own, to "hold me until I find the nerve."

Edited by Senna James, Sophia Braccio and Natalia Jarrett.


Reach the reporter at adirst@asu.edu and follow @andrewdirst on X.

Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.


Andrew DirstThe Echo Editor

Andrew is a junior studying journalism and mass communication. This is his third semester with The State Press. He has also worked at The Arizona Republic.


Continue supporting student journalism and donate to The State Press today.

Subscribe to Pressing Matters



×

Notice

This website uses cookies to make your experience better and easier. By using this website you consent to our use of cookies. For more information, please see our Cookie Policy.