There’s a scene at the end of Hulu’s Fleishman Is in Trouble where a weary and kind husband yells at his flaky writer wife, Libby, to accept her nice life in suburban New Jersey. Watching alongside my own husband, a proud son of the Garden state, I noticed him taking in the scene with an expression of the purest contentment. That man loves New Jersey. And lately I’ve had to admit that I like it, too.
This is counter to expectation. Writing this week in New York Magazine, Caitlin Moscatello interviewed a number of mothers for whom Libby’s plight triggered feelings about their own suburban New Jersey lives of desperation, shopping in Target amongst “pod people” and longing for the kind of money that pays for private school and luxurious bathroom renovations. I’m not without sympathy for them: I, too, look up people’s house values on Zillow. Much like Libby, I now live in the New Jersey suburbs near New York City and feel disconnected from the creative ambitions of my pre-parent life. But it turns out that I feel OK about this.
New Jersey was not a place I ever envisioned myself making a home. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t imagine that I was a glamorous, cosmopolitan kind of person, longing to be set free from the semi-rural subdivision where I grew up. At 18, I struck out for my first big city and lived for the next 21 years in metropolises where I could always rely on access to public transportation, world-class art, interesting restaurants, and frequent opportunities to eavesdrop on the lively personal drama of strangers. I was a writer! I thrived on the energy, the hustle, the angry elbows. I made friends with interesting people from all over the world who’d also found their way to cities. Glamorous, cosmopolitan people like me.
Then I had a toddler in a small apartment in a global pandemic. As New York’s first lockdowns eased in the late spring of 2020, we took our son to get some fresh air at Green-Wood Cemetery (it felt safer than going to the park) and he stumbled in the long grass. He didn’t know how to walk outdoors. Knowing that we’d surely go back into isolation as the weather got colder, I told my husband it was time: I conceded that we should move to New Jersey.
What did I know about New Jersey? Not a lot. I’d watched Jersey Shore on MTV in the early 2000s. I’d read the works of Philip Roth and Judy Blume. Early on in our relationship, I was surprised when my (now) husband invited me to join his friends for a weekend at a Jersey shore beach house. Surprised because it turned out to be a pleasant seaside town with pristine rolling sand dunes, and also surprised because the weekend with friends turned out to be their multigenerational annual family vacation. The whole family welcomed me as if I wasn’t just some lady he’d met on Tinder a few weeks earlier, and now I see that laid back, hospitable, pull-up-a-chair vibe as characteristic of New Jersey culture.
New Jersey knows that city people think it’s a bit of a joke, and New Jersey says … whatever. You’re still welcome here. (After California, New Jersey is the state with the second-highest population of immigrants per capita.)
Yes, I do like New Jersey. For a while whenever I admitted this to friends, I prefaced it with a heavy sigh and some self-deprecating anecdote about how I never dreamed I’d end up in New Jersey. But soon I realized that no one found that interesting. My life here is about as good as can be at this time in the world and this time in my life: sometimes very hard, and sometimes very happy. We live near friends. We have a home that’s large enough for our family. My kids are very familiar with grass, and they roll around in it on warm evenings with other kids from our block. In this town, I’ve met new people from many different places who are in all walks of life. I’ve come to believe that pretty much everyone has a good story to share. You just have to stop worrying about being the most interesting or successful person in the room to order to hear them.
Now when I take the train to Manhattan, I’m always happy to be there, and I’m always happy to eavesdrop on some strangers’ lively personal drama. But I’m also happy to get on the train home.
Location is vital to happiness in some life stages. In others, less so. What would I be doing if my life were still in New York? I’d still be playing with dinosaurs and having imaginary tea parties. I’d still be shocked by our grocery bill (expensive even in the suburbs) and texting my friends near and far about books and television and how difficult it is to arrange summer childcare. I’d still be working in a career that is not the one I dreamed of 15 years ago, but which allows me to support my family. If I still lived in New York, I’d still be going through treatment for very early stage breast cancer. Living in New York wouldn’t save me from that. If I still lived in New York, I would not be doing mountains of laundry, but that’s because my husband has always done our mountains of laundry, a fact that I’m loath to admit because I know it sounds so smug. Roast me!
If I still lived in New York, I think I’d be happy. But that’s not because of New York: it’s because I’m happy now. In Fleishman, Libby fears that leaving New York has divorced her from her truest self. But becoming a parent turns everyone into someone unfamiliar. Accepting that can make it possible to get to know your new self anywhere. Even (heavy sigh) in New Jersey.
