I never loved San Francisco
A year ago this week I moved out of San Francisco and didn’t look back. When ‘Moving Forward’ was the only moving company in the area with short-notice availability, I took it as a sign. I was moving forward. And out of San Francisco.
I approached my unplanned move with the same efficiency and operational tact I employ when planning multi-day, multi-thousand-person events. In a nutshell: make shi*t happen, and deal with the feelings and fallout later.
I never said goodbye to San Francisco, the city I had called home for the better part of a decade. I said goodbye to the life I had almost lived, sobbing at the foot of the bed my partner and I had shared. I said goodbye to what I was knowingly turning my back on — what I had thought I wanted for all of my 20s. I said goodbye to the house that I tried to love, to feel comfortable in, and to make a home. But never goodbye to San Francisco.
As I returned to the city on a blustery autumn day this past week, I was finally able to put words to the complicated relationship that had nagged me for so long: I never loved San Francisco. It was never home.
What I had loved about living in San Francisco had vanished over time. Which is why it was so easy to leave.
Long past were Saturday morning runs with my best friend along Marina Green. Vintner’s Market at Fort Mason. The Marina bar scene (did I ever love this? I digress). Pretending to be a “foodie” when being a “foodie” was a thing. Picnics at Fort Mason. Tech bros and Ibanker bros and every other terrible variation of city bro. Scraping to make rent every month on my entry-level salary. Street festivals and day festivals and the revelry of being twenty-three and for the first time having money, true freedom, and a city ripe for the taking. Girls on the Run. Friday night volunteer shifts and fostering through Family Dog Rescue. Walking to work.
These things fell away slowly. My best friend moved out of our apartment and in with her future husband, and eventually away. Friendships faded and ceased. We stopped “going out.” Day festivals and drunken street revelry were locked down. Festivals became overcrowded. Friends got engaged, married, pregnant, better jobs, new houses, and life changed altogether.
And then finally, the last nail in the coffin, Covid. Proximity to work was no longer a selling point. And an ample three-bedroom apartment turned into a cage that I had unknowingly locked myself into.
A year on, I look at memories of my time in San Francisco with fondness, akin to childhood memories. You can never go back, but you can appreciate how it was.
I never loved San Francisco, despite all its charms. It never felt like home. But I loved so many people there, and that was enough.
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Note:
I’m sure someone will point out that this kind of relationship with San Francisco is exactly what’s “wrong” with the city, what’s led to simultaneous rapid gentrification and slow decline. We used it up. We took it for all it was worth, without appreciating those who have taken time and energy to make it a true home. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge this.
And I agree. While we fueled the economy with our tech-fed wages, we lamented the city’s shortcomings as if we weren’t part of the problem. The astronomical rent prices, dirty streets, homelessness, smash-and-grab burglaries, and rampant drug use. We were contented to sit back and complain about these inconveniences, leaving the problem to be solved by others. Local government. “Real” San Franciscans. Anyone but us.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but because I never viewed San Francisco as home, I never held a stake in fixing it. I’m sorry San Francisco. I was part of the problem. I hope future generations and real San Franciscans restore you.
