How to Move – Part I: How to Pick a Place to Live (Post 2 of 3)

Nothing Left to Lose (New Jersey)

Growing up, I always had a lot of respect for New Jersey because of the artists I had loved  who originated from the Garden State: Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and Frank Sinatra. Just as my fondness for LA Story forecasted my interest in older men, I now see my fondness for New Jersey was largely underscoring my attraction to men of Italian heritage. (And again, having married Basil: achievement unlocked.)

The move I ended up making to New Jersey did not seem like much of a choice to me at the time: my future ex-husband had been complaining of extreme back pain for many months back in 2007/2008. I had been unsure how bad it actually was, as my future ex-husband (whom I will now refer to hereafter as “FE” for short) loved to complain about everything. When he started saying he was having trouble walking, we went to the doctor. The doctor told us if the pain was really that bad FE should get an MRI. So we did.

Then that same doctor looked at the MRI and told us parts of FE’s spinal cord were so badly degenerated surgery was urgently needed. After showing the MRI to a few surgeons in Arizona, where we were living at the time, they said they were not skilled enough to do the surgery. They mentioned there may be a few specialists in other parts of the country that could pull it off, but there was no one in Arizona they could recommend.

I did some internet research after the appointment: it looked like one of the best neurosurgeons in the world who specialized in these kinds of surgeries worked at University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. I asked FE: his parents lived in the part of New Jersey that was really close to Philly, right? Could we stay with them for a while as we tried to get FE in with this surgeon? Before I knew it, we were packing up the apartment and getting ready to drive across the country.

At the time I was leaving for New Jersey I was feeling even more lost and unsuccessful than I had when I was leaving Tucson for LA. I had continued to work in coffee when we moved from LA back to Tucson: I took a job with Starbucks, even though I was not excited about joining the company. FE had stopped working because of his declining health. He had been telecommuting to a not-particularly high earning job and then he had just started sleeping for large parts of the day for weeks on end. I had taught myself how to work his job for him and did that for a while in addition to working my full time retail coffee shop job, but eventually his employer figured out something was up and put that to an end.

These circumstances meant we were already pretty broke when the NJ move came into view. I tried to look for jobs outside of retail in New Jersey, just as I had been doing in Tucson, but I was having no luck. The timing for the job hunt couldn’t have been worse, as this time period coincided with the 2008 financial crisis.

I had also started transitioning genders in April 2007, including transitioning on the job as a coffee shop manager. The experience was emotionally exhausting, although I felt fortunate to work for a company who didn’t fire me immediately. There were lots of uncomfortable conversations trying to educate employees and co-workers and goodness knows what was being said when I wasn’t around, but all in all I knew I was fortunate to have the experience I was having.

I wasn’t sure what life would be like in New Jersey, but it didn’t seem like it could get a whole lot worse than it currently was in Tucson. I hoped the back surgery would (literally) help get FE back on his feet. I liked the idea of being close to FE’s family: I had been back for a Christmas gathering a few years before and had enjoyed myself. I had never lived close to any extended family, so the thought of having some sort of family near by appealed to me.

I was still going to have to work for Starbucks, but they agreed to transfer me to the New Jersey market, which I was very grateful for. Especially since my health insurance coverage through the Bux would end up covering FE’s eventual back surgery and several months of rehab, which without insurance would have totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In summary, this move seemed like the only option at the time. I hoped it would fix FE’s back (which it did). I hoped it would help ease my gender transition by bringing me to a place where people only knew me as a man named James (it did). I hoped the pizza would be great (it was) and the bagels would be better (they were). But I didn’t know any of that for sure at the time.

Of course, the move wasn’t really the only option: I could have stayed in Tucson and shipped FE back to live with his parents and have them deal with the back surgery. The district manager I worked for at the time at Starbucks asked me if I had considered that option when I asked for the transfer to New Jersey. But it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

The move to New Jersey ended up changing my life in other significant ways: I went to work for TD Bank about a year after we moved to Jersey. I just couldn’t stand another minute working in retail coffee. TD had an operations center down the street from an apartment I ended up renting, and I had heard they paid well for entry level positions. It was that job which got me interested in banking and regulatory compliance. It was also the people I met at that job who convinced me getting my MBA and being a CPA would be a good path forward for me professionally. And if I hadn’t pursued these new steps in my career, it would have been unlikely I would have met Basil.

I lived in New Jersey for six years. I came to love a lot about it, including how it enriched my understanding of so many Bruce Springsteen lyrics. I loved going down to the shore, and I was always delighted people really called it that, instead of just “the beach”. I loved going to the most amazing Italian bakeries. Unlike many people I have met, I don’t consider New Jersey to be a punchline to living in New York (or anywhere else): it has its own merit as a place to call home.

If you find yourself feeling like destiny is forcing your hand when you move to a new place, hang in there. The process of having to learn about and live in a new place you wouldn’t have picked for yourself can change your life in any number of ways.

Next Post: Going Home (Tucson, AZ)