5 Things I Miss About The East Coast

About 2 years ago, when I was 27 I made the move out to Los Angeles from New Jersey. Previously I had lived in Chicago and Orlando two very unique yet different cities in their own right but LA always intrigued me. It was the center of the world for creative arts aka movies and also had nearly perfect weather all year around.

Everybody who grows up on the east coast and then makes the big move out to LA talks about all the rather trivial things they miss like fried chicken wings from Chinese restaurants, NYC Pizza, or even crazier tap water.  I really don’t miss that stuff at all.

Let me preface before I go forward, I love LA. I don’t think I will ever move from this place. It is though an imperfect town kind of like that bi-polar friend friend who is also addicted to pain killers but you know when push comes to shoove that person will pick up the phone to bail you out of jail if need be.  (Hope you get the point). Also I really do find the homeless people in Venice Beach quite entertaining.

What I miss though is the following:

1. Camraderie:  “The weather is shit outside, its going to be shit tomorrow, and the next day as well so lets just go grab some hot coco and enjoy this shit together” An Old Pickup Line I used back in the day to ask a girl out on a date in a subway station

When you grow up with and can’t control random life imperfections like weather, traffic, public transit delays etc they’re is this weird sense of camaraderie in the air. It’s similar to the common enemy theory, both of you and the person can instantly connect on the premise of both having to deal with bullshit.

There is a lack of camaraderie in LA because people in this town have very little in common with each other. Besides traffic not a lot of people share the same problems.

2. Familiarity “ I am from the Inland Empire, do you know my friend Mike he is from New Jersey”. Exact quote from random women I met while stand up paddle boarding when I first moved here.

Response: Is the inland empire a part of Star Wars, are you just messing with me? Just because I am from New Jersey doesn’t mean I am instantly connected to every dude in the state.

I know this might sound trivial but I miss having random things in common with people that I meet when it comes to our childhood.

3. People Who Work

Not an indictment of people out there, unlike common misconceptions there is a large segment of people in LA that bust their ass and get shit done.

The other half of people though are the same people who you see doing yoga under a big tree at 1 o clock in the afternoon on a tuesday. I know Yoga is helpful in an all but I miss that non stop hustle in the air.

I am sure if I ever went back to NYC area, I’ll be writing a blog post about how much I miss those pot smoking, recycle everything or die tuesday 1 o clock yoga people.

4. Living On Top Of People

I grew up in Freehold NJ, I lived in Hoboken and NYC for a time and I appreciated living on top of people.  They’re just isn’t any room in the cities back east, nobody really has any privacy.

They’re is way too much privacy here.

I know that sounds crazy, but overall I miss things being close by and not having to drive to everything.

5. Family

Hanukhah, Thanksgiving or even Halloween I don’t really miss my family that much during those holidays cause usually I am with them. I find though that I start missing my family a lot more over all the hallmark holidays like Fathers Day, Mothers Day and Grandma’s Day.

It’s this weird sense of guilt that starts to pop up over me during the hallmark holidays, maybe the marketing genius’s who built these holidays had planned for this to happen.

I think as a kid, I took family for granted since everybody lived close by . It still hasn’t sunk in that I live 3,000 miles from nearly every family member I have, maybe it never will.