on tethering and untethering

Why does it feel so easy to slip into untethered-ness, especially when living in a city you didn't grow up in? It's such the norm these days—moving cities, states, countries in search of something new, different, more aligned with who we think we're becoming, building new social circles from scratch each time. But the feeling of grounded-ness still feels so elusive. Either a break-up or a shift of clouds to cover the sun, a forgotten chill in the air as the leaves turn, a friend unable to come over for a glass of wine and a surprisingly empty night of plans, and everything just feels a little bit wobbly. For me now, on the other side of the world from family, it's knowing that when I most want to call home for reassurance or just to hear a familiar voice, my parents might not be awake. Knowing that each time the timezones don't align it's one less conversation you're going to share.

I've read two books recently that explore this exact terrain of displacement and searching: The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş and Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico. Both center around young couples who'd left their hometowns and moved to the cool, sought-after, big-city in search of rich life experiences, the chance to be creative and have the value of their creativity mirrored back to them, the knowing that there is always a new bar, restaurant, museum to explore—even though most of the time those plans fall away in favor of what slowly becomes familiar and safe. The very feeling they were so scared of being trapped by in their previous situations.

In Savaş's novel, the protagonists drift through their adopted city like anthropologists studying a culture they can observe but never quite inhabit, while Latronico's characters chase an idealized version of urban sophistication that remains perpetually just out of reach. Both pairs were lucky in their ability to find love and partnership in their college years, and to build and explore and establish hand in hand with their chosen person.

This reminded me of a TikTok video I watched recently—my whole algorithm is other Americans who have moved to London, which constantly reminds me how deeply unoriginal I am (and that's really okay)—of a girl pondering why so many expats who "stay" long-term are those who have found romantic relationships. Which does feel intuitive, but when reminded of the reasons so many of us dug in for these big moves or experiences—adventure, education, expansion—it actually feels a little bit surprising. It reminds me how badly we might all need to feel a little bit more tethered, and how as we age we begin to reprioritize that elusive feeling of groundedness over the very things that sent us away from home in the first place.

Before London, I lived in New York for almost five years, all of them spent single and dating around casually. When I would return home to my apartment in Brooklyn, alone and surrounded by four walls (especially cozy ones in my first NY place), there was a conflicting mix of emotions. A quiet elation for having "done the thing"—I moved to New York! I was here and anything was possible—and yet also this fear that I couldn't quite place. It was a bit uneasy, like I was in the waiting room for the life I had arrived for, but also like there should really be someone here a bit closer to help me witness it. And that if no one was here to witness it with me, maybe it wasn't really real at all.

The characters in both The Anthropologists and Perfection grapple with this same haunting question of authenticity—are their carefully curated urban lives genuine, or are they performing a version of sophistication for an audience that may not even exist? There's something both thrilling and terrifying about the freedom to reinvent yourself completely, but also something fundamentally lonely about it.

Now maybe that means I could improve at spending time alone—true—but I think the lack of distraction allowed me to tap into that underlying feeling: I wanted someone or something to tie myself to. I'd ripped the cord, left San Francisco where I'd been living with my best friend under the same roof for five years, in search of something bigger and brighter, more diverse and more aligned, which all remained true. But if I couldn't call this city mine, nor any one person, my family in Seattle pushed even further away, how many solo trips to a new exhibit could really fill me up?

And yet, I did build my community in New York over the course of those four years. I found people who felt like chosen family, who very much did ground me in the city and made it feel like home in ways I hadn't expected. But as I left my twenties and entered my thirties there, my friends began finding their forever partners or taking next steps with existing ones. There's still something different about the intimacy of sharing daily life—waking up in the same space as my best friend back in SF, or the particular closeness that comes with romantic partnership. Even the strongest friendships, the ones that sustain you through everything, exist within the boundaries of separate lives, separate homes, separate rhythms.

As you can see, there's a bit of a pattern for me: SF to New York, New York to London. A certain restlessness. Honestly, kind of a cliche, but I don't mind that designation. If there is anything that I've learned in all this seeking, it's that we really are not so unique—at least not within this subset of later millennials, all of us feeling like we are discovering the world and ourselves simultaneously. We were sold a different version of how our lives might have progressed—clearer career ladders, homeownership by thirty, perhaps more linear relationship trajectories—and we're largely redefining as a group what adult life can and does look like in response to global economic realities, climate uncertainty, and shifting social structures. Many of us seem to want a steady increase of pace and exposure from our lives and from the world around us, and yet are learning along the way that we need to slow down, and with that root down too. To tether to something, someone, some place.

It was quite the interesting mirror to read through these two novels, and if you hear yourself at all in these words, I think you might enjoy the insight and the familiarity too. Both Savaş and Latronico capture something essential about this particular kind of modern loneliness—not just the absence of true belonging, but the restless questioning that persists even in moments when belonging feels within reach, as if we've trained ourselves to mistrust the very thing we seek. It may all feel quite existential, and of course bleak in this current world landscape, but our internal worlds share so much dialogue. We all want and need to know if this choice, this job, this relationship, this city are the right ones. If we should stay, or if we should find our way back home.

What I've found comforting is reminding myself that any choice you actually commit to becomes the right one through the living of it. And perhaps most surprisingly, I've discovered that in sharing these uncertainties—this restless search for home, for witness, for ground beneath our feet—I continue to find exactly what I was seeking. In the act of naming our untethered-ness, we tether to each other.

References:

• Latronico, Vincenzo. Perfection.

• Savaş, Ayşegül. The Anthropologists.