Commentaries : A Transplanted New Yorker Is Hanging Tough in San Diego

It has been a year since I moved to San Diego, a 45-year-old westward dream finally fulfilled. It has been a year since I left family and childhood friends in New York City to start a new life 3,000 miles away. It has been a year since I walked away from a secure job of 25 years--a tenured, well paying, cradle-to-the-grave position. It has been a year.

It has been a year whose very shape was defined by the economy.

I was a teacher and writer Back East, and was raised to believe that persistence and drive would somehow overcome whatever difficulties I’d encounter in the world. But now, more than 200 resumes and rejection letters later, my expectations have diminished. I have been wisely counseled not to blame myself. Even the rejection letters themselves tell me the problem: “. . . under normal circumstances, Dr. Karlitz, we’d probably have a place for you in our organization, but due to the current economic climate . . .” Now granted, this doesn’t put food on the table, nor does it pay the rent or doctor bills, but it does tend to alleviate personal guilt by transferring my lack of success to external factors.

As a free-lance writer in New York, I was relatively successful. I was published with regularity in newspapers and magazines. Quite naturally, I started writing shortly after arriving in San Diego. While I initially found a vibrant writer’s market out here, things turned. Where there were three daily newspapers in the city when I first arrived, there suddenly were only two, as the San Diego Union and San Diego Tribune merged. And now, even the very pages on which these words appear will be gone, as the Los Angeles Times announced it will be shutting down its San Diego County edition. That leaves but one major daily for a city of more than 2 million people, and drastically diminishes the local market for free-lance writers. Again, I comfort myself by saying it’s beyond my control; not to take it personally.

The economy is taking its toll on personal friendships as well. I was told it would be difficult for someone my age to make new friends, but that wasn’t the case. In a very short time, my wife and I become close with some wonderful people. Then one new friend lost his job and left for Michigan to rejoin his family; another moved to Oregon after his engineering firm folded, and a third will shortly be leaving for Los Angeles for a company transfer.

My world has turned, and the more I get to know California and its people, the more I’m beginning to feel the answer lies in the sun. I guess the biggest difference between New York and California is that the sun rises on the East Coast. There’s an energy which welcomes the daybreak with a great and almost breathless anticipation. People can’t wait to get going. Out here, people wait for the sun to set. It seems to be a more introspective and patient process.

There have been times when I’ve been afraid this past year. But when that anxiety strikes, I go down to the beach and watch the sun settle into the Pacific. It’s a calming process. It reminds me that I’m a survivor, and that I’ll do whatever it takes to get by. I’ll hold on. Things will get better. It’s a matter of patience, only a matter of time.