Claire Legrand

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Every now and then, we need a good scare.

I’m not talking about being chased by zombies or riding that new roller coaster we’ve heard so much about or watching a scary movie and somehow not peeing ourselves.

I’m talking about change, adventure, movement. The courage to get outside our comfort zones, whether that’s trying a new food or a new way of thinking. The courage to realize that, yes, this will be terrifying and it may not work out at all or maybe just not the way we’re thinking, but we will come out of it stronger, richer individuals, better informed about ourselves and the way we work, the things we want, the things we don’t want.

In my opinion, that courage — and the accompanying fear necessitating said courage — is the toughest kind of all.

And I am currently enveloped in it.

For some time now, I’ve wanted to live in New York City. There are lots of reasons for this.

The most superficial stems from when I was much younger and watched romanticized and unrealistic movies like You’ve Got Mail and agreed with Meg Ryan that, yes, New York in the fall must be a beautiful thing indeed; or when I watched Friends and fell in love with the idea of living there, regardless of the facts that the show wasn’t even filmed there and that I would never be able to afford an apartment like Monica’s.

But there are other, more important reasons, too.

There is so much going on in New York — so much culture, so much entertainment, so many different kinds of people and neighborhoods and life all crammed onto this island the size of my local airport (I’m talking solely about Manhattan here, of course). What an inspiration, what a thrill. I want to experience this. I want to immerse myself in it, and see what happens.

I also want to experience change.

I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, never outside a thirty-mile radius of where I was born. I could drive around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex blindfolded (although I would never actually do that; Texas drivers are intense, y’all).

It is comfortable to me there. I love the wide, open spaces, the rolling prairie grasses, the bluebonnets that line the highways for that magical, ephemeral period in the spring. I love the food, the big sky that stretches on forever, the friendliness of people. Complete strangers smile and wave at you on the road (well, depending on what road you’re on; you’d better not smile and wave at anyone on 635 or one of the toll roads; you’d better floor it to at least 80 miles per hour or you WILL get eaten alive by that SUV behind you). If I’m feeling pensive, I can go on a long drive past horse ranches and prairieland, and then stop by Sonic on my way home for a giant drink because, you know, it’s summer like six months of the year there, and you’d better hope the air conditioning unit in your car is working, but even when it is, sometimes you need a cherry limeade to quench your thirst.

I will miss this – this comfort, this familiarity, this sense of home. I will miss seeing the occasional cowboy-hatted man and smiling wryly because I know that there are people in the world who think all Texans dress like that and own horses and live on ranches and say y’all (well, yeah, most of us do say y’all, and it is an extremely efficient and convenient contraction, thank you very much). I will miss traveling elsewhere and saying I’m from Texas, and people immediately knowing where and what that is. I will miss the unmistakeable identity, gumption, and pride of my home state and the people in it.

I will miss — god, how much I will miss — my friends and family. These friends are people I’ve known since we were all twelve years old and suffering through the awkward hell that is middle school together. And my family, my Battleship Legrand — I will miss seeing them every holiday, and I will miss being only an hour or so away from my grandparents’ house, my Coolest Aunt‘s house, my precious cousins. I will miss my dad, my Writer’s Dad (he calls himself WD), who has always been so unwaveringly supportive of me, who always has a cheesy joke ready, who always has a giant Dad hug ready. I will miss my stepmom, my stepbrothers, my stepsister.

I will miss my dog, Amos, who is prissy and surprisingly cutthroat around other dogs and acts like a puppy even though he is now an old man. I will miss my brother, who is the best brother in the world. I will miss my mom, who is my hero, my best friend, my rock. We’ve gone through so much during the past year. A year ago today, we were in the hospital as she recovered from a radical surgery to get rid of the cancer eating away at her insides. Skype only does so much; how will I go entire months without seeing her?

Honestly? I don’t know.

But I know that moving to New York is something I have to do. And I’m doing it, all right. In February.

(That’s in three weeks.)

I’ve spent the last few days hunting for apartments with future roomie Ellen (@ellenbwright on Twitter). I’ve heard a mariachi band playing on the subway. I’ve discussed strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse with our broker. I’ve spent a lot of money — oh boy, NYC living; it’s intense, y’all — to secure an apartment that I just love.

I’ve been so giddy that I’ve had to resist skipping and singing my way down Broadway.

I’ve been so terrified, so worried that I’m making a mistake, so already overcome with missing my family, that I’ve had to sit down and hug myself and remind myself that I am strong, that I can do this, that it will be scary and hard at times, yes, but it will also be wonderful. I have friends here. I have a man I love here. I even have a second cousin here! I’m only a four-hour drive away from one of my oldest friends, who lives in D.C. The publishing industry is here, my agent and editor are here, fabulous writers are here.

I can do this. I am doing this. It’s already been an adventure, and I know it will continue to be. Maybe I will hate it. Maybe, a year from now when my lease ends, I will be heading elsewhere. I will miss my family and friends so much that some nights all I will do is hurt. But I will meet new friends and I will be able to go to Books of Wonder launch parties. I will attend New York Phil concerts and go to museums. I will eat more pizza than I probably should. I will find my favorite writing spot at some cafe or coffee house, and I will write more than I’ve ever written before.

I feel like my “real life” is starting now, so far from home, so far from everything I’ve ever known. That isn’t to say that my life until this point hasn’t been real; rather, it’s just that now, I’m truly out on my own, and I will become more richly, more fully myself than I have ever been.

It’s scary.

It’s exhilarating.

It will be an adventure.