Seventeen years. Almost. Sixteen years and ten months if we’re counting, which apparently I am now that I’m leaving New York City. Technically, I was leaving the United States, but NYC never quite felt like the United States. It had its own gravity.
I moved to Astoria in 2009 and stayed. Over the years that western corner of Queens became home in a way that felt permanent even when I knew it wasn’t. Every block had its rhythm, every eating place its diplomacy. I learned how to measure distance by subway delays, how to calculate rent increases by pain tolerance. For a long time, it worked.
Then the world stopped. The city that never slept finally did.
During the pandemic, New York went silent. Streets emptied. The twenty-four-hour places shut their doors. Even the usual background hum disappeared. For the first time, the city could rest, and in that silence, I did too. It was strange to discover peace in a place built on motion. When the noise eventually came back, it felt slightly offbeat, as if the rhythm had shifted for good.
Now, after nearly two decades, I am packing boxes, canceling utilities, and trying to fit a life into a shipping container.
The return
I am going back to Germany, a place I left twenty years ago in search of a “Better Life™” in the so-called motherland. It lasted three years before I moved to New York. So yes, technically this is a return, but it does not feel like one. The Germany I left twenty years ago isn’t there anymore. Neither is the person who left.
Still, those three years mattered. That was when I met my wife, and that is enough reason to be grateful. Some decisions only make sense much later.
The why
Why now? The short answer is a job offer. The longer one is fatigue.
After more than twenty years in software development, I was worn down. Ich bin fix und fertig. The field kept reinventing itself without improving much. Every new framework or trend promised efficiency while killing curiosity. Requirements multiplied, creativity shrank. Code turned into product, and product turned into maintenance1.
I still liked building things, but the work surrounding it had become heavier than the work itself. The joy of solving problems was buried under bug fixes, dashboards, and constant review cycles. I caught myself reading changelogs instead of books. That was the sign.
When a university offer appeared: research, teaching, music, networks; it felt like an exit ramp. No roadmaps, no sprint tickets, just time to think again.
The shift
I’m not escaping New York. Maybe I’m just preserving what’s left of my attention span.
Academia is imperfect. It is slow, bureaucratic, and allergic to urgency. But it allows time to think. It still rewards focus. After years of chasing velocity, that feels like relief.
In Germany I will work on projects where software, music, and networks overlap. Some will fail. Some will drift for months before showing promise. That is fine. It is a different kind of progress.
The cost
Leaving costs more than money.
Every corner of Astoria carries a memory. The laundromat that survived three rent hikes, then closed down. The butcher who always knows the order even before anything spoken. The toy store that kept running while everything else changed. You cannot box that up.
There is also the quiet architecture of habit. Knowing which train car stops near the exit. Which coffee shop opens early. Which bodega cat tolerates attention. Those are small things that make a city livable. You cannot rebuild them on demand.
And after the pandemic, the city changed. The twenty-four-hour diners never reopened. The all-night stores became twenty-hour stores. The noise softened. Maybe that is what aging looks like, for cities and for people.
The logistics
Moving with family adds its own chaos. My wife, my son, and I are balancing shipment dates, clothes donation, and school search. Health insurance. Bank accounts. SIM cards. It is a full-time job made of forms. The group chat has been more active than my actual packing. Yet I still have time to write this2.
Our spreadsheet looks like a cross between a NASA checklist and a bureaucratic survival manual. I color-coded it. My wife is terrified of it.
Leipzig will be our landing zone. A temporary apartment. Registration. Meetings. Then a search for something longer term, hopefully near trams but away from traffic. Quiet, but not too quiet.
The transition
It feels like leaving mid-sentence. There was no cinematic farewell. No skyline goodbye. I did take a photo of the Manhattan skyline from the subway, but it came out blurry and I deleted it immediately. That probably says something. Most goodbyes were text messages and “see you when I’m back”. Some people just hearted the message.
That is all right. It means life kept moving.
Leipzig runs at a different pace. The air is slower. Sundays are silent. I will need to relearn what to do with quiet. I will also need to remember how to say “Guten Tag” without sounding like a tourist.
There will be forms, lots of them, but paperwork feels lighter when life feels breathable.
The hope
I am not chasing a new life. I am adjusting the old one.
New York taught me speed. Leipzig might teach me balance. Seventeen years is long enough for a place to shape your wiring. Leaving does not reset it. It just reroutes the current.
So yes, I am leaving New York. But the story continues. Different city, different rhythm, same goal: staying curious without burning out. We’ll see how that goes.