I didn’t realize it had been over five years since I had last been to New York until I visited my friends in Queens and their daughter answered the door. She’s now five—and adorable—and was born after my most recent visit, which was probably around 2017.
It’s crazy how time flies. After living in New York (Astoria, Queens, to be precise) for three years, I would return to the city many times while working for Trello and even a couple times while working for FullStory. But then I stopped going to as many conferences, and then COVID happened, and then life happened, and what do you know, it’s been over half a decade.
I have a few sundry themes for this week:
Being sick
Travel
Friends
This is an “Etc.” post. Most of the time I write about customers and business and such. This time I’m writing about other things.
On being sick
We got up at four in the morning and were back home in Atlanta at around noon on Sunday. Even still, I was more tired than usual and was wondering if I was getting sick. By Sunday night, it was clear I had caught something.
One of the things I hate most about being sick is how useless I feel. And I felt genuinely useless. I was on a call with a colleague, struggling to get words out, and he says, “Oh, Ben, you don’t sound like yourself.” Ugh. Useless.
There are no hard feelings of course. Everyone tells you to rest up and get better. Which, I did that, but when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t help but feel sorry for yourself and start imagining a future where you’ll only make commitments for work that you can complete with 25% of your functioning brain. It’s hard to imagine getting better, no matter how many times you’ve been sick and gotten better in the past.
Nothing makes you more grateful for health than being sick. Monday and Tuesday felt like a constant fever dream. I was surprised to start feeling better on Wednesday. And for that I’m grateful.
Travel
I’ve written an entire post on travel, and how it’s different from “vacation”. Travel is all about immersing yourself in a new place. Vacation might be about rest, or “doing things”, or Disney, or visiting family. You might travel on your vacation, but they’re not the same.
When I decided to take my daughter, Sophia, to New York for her thirteenth birthday, I hoped that she would get to experience a fair bit of travel in the process. Although she had spent the first three years of her life in the city, she didn’t remember any of it.
First order of business? Take public transportation. I’m always irrationally proud of myself when I figure out public transportation again in a city. I shouldn’t be that proud—it’s a city, after all—but for someone who spends his time getting around by car, adjusting to the rhythms and machinations of buses and trains always takes some getting used to.
While we did have some scheduled TODOs on our calendar—Sophia wanted to see Hamilton and I wanted to visit our friends in Queens—the rest of the schedule was completely free. Friday morning we went downtown and I showed Sophia the building where I used to work. “This was the train I would take—see how we’re squished like sardines?” and “that was the hotel where Fog Creek put me up for my first interview” and “this is the church where I would sometimes go to mass on my lunch break.” No agenda, we just took it in, and she was an incredible sport in following my lead.
For me it was all stuff I had done before, but for Sophia it would have been travel.
Friends
Is making friends as an adult hard? I find it easy to be friend-ly, but actually making deep, lasting friendships as an adult, I find that difficult. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because—for me and my wife, at least—so many relationships are defined via our children and so many adult relationships are defined by work. And after kids and work, what time is left for actual friendship? I dislike making excuses, but it is difficult.
The friends we visited in Queens are some of our closest friends. Despite it being over ten years since we lived in New York and there being hundreds of miles between us now, I still feel incredibly close to them. When we get together, it feels like no time has passed, even if it’s clear much time has passed, as evidenced by their kids growing up (and their family getting larger!). I’m incredibly grateful for that time together.
And now?
As the year winds down and we enter into the rest between Christmas and the beginning of the new year, we can be intentional about how we spend our time. Now is the time to put time on the calendar for the people and activities that matter most.