Today, Sept. 18, marks six months since we moved to Pittsburgh—six months since we said good-bye to our friends, family and life in Florida, packed our stuff in a U-Haul and headed north to our new place, which we’d never set foot in before we arrived. We slept on an air mattress that first night with Rambo sandwiched between us, marveling at the 40-degree temperatures and our new view. In some ways, March 18—the day we left—feels like a lifetime ago; in others, it feels like minutes.
As you might expect, there’s been a steep learning curve for me, a native Floridian who’s never lived anywhere else until this year. Sure, I spent time with my family in Scranton as a kid, and Rob and I visit his family in New York pretty frequently, but actually living somewhere with a climate, in an old house that has a thousand steps and a thousand quirks? Totally new to me.
We got here at the beginning of spring, when tiny buds were starting to peek out of the still-frozen ground and temperatures were beginning to rise (even though we had a few snowfalls in April and I still had to buy a warm winter coat). Rob keeps telling me how well this worked out; that I’ll get to actually experience all four seasons this year and feel what living in each of them is actually like. Right now, the leaves are just starting to turn—a gigantic thrill for me—and the nighttime temps are consistently dipping into the 50s, making morning dog walks with Rambo extra nice.
And in honor of six months of being here, I thought I’d share six random things I’ve learned or observed since moving to this unfamiliar—but lovely—new city, from silly to serious.
Hills! (And scenery in general.) Whoa, hills. Growing up in flat Florida, this has been one of the biggest adjustments for me aside from the weather. A walk around our block requires going up and down a hill; if we venture a few blocks over, the ascent is even steeper and chances are we have to stop and pant mid-climb. A friend said that everyone in Pittsburgh has great legs because of the city steps and the hills—I can see why.
It’s also worth noting that once you get 20 minutes outside the city, the terrain changes drastically—it’s all rolling countryside and farms and antique shops and “dairy bars” (ice cream shops), which I love. Driving back from New York in the spring, it was golden hour and the setting sun glinted against the green hills and everything glowed. I miss Sarasota’s beautiful seaside sunsets all the time, but being near the mountains is magical, too.
Pittsburgh sports fever is real. I haven’t come across a single person who doesn’t have some sort of black-and-gold item of clothing up here, be it for the Pirates (baseball), Steelers (football) or Penguins (hockey). It’s kind of fortunate that one of my favorite colors is marigold yellow; I feel like I fit right in when I wear it, even if it’s accidental. I grew up watching the Orlando Magic play basketball, so living in a football/baseball/hockey town is a fun and interesting change of pace (though I’ll love the NBA forever).
Western PA slang is hilarious. In the South, people say “y’all” when referring to a group of people—you know, like, “Y’all wanna go to the park?” Up here, the collective noun of choice is “yinz,” which is…really funny to me. People ask if “yinz wanna go get a drink”; people from Pittsburgh are also referred to as “yinzers.” It makes me laugh every time I hear it, especially when said unironically.
Things are old—real old—here. We live in a 1920s brick house that still has small metal doors for “milk and package delivery” on the outside and a million tiny nooks and crannies inside—one of which I’m pretty sure is a dumbwaiter. Up the street is a church that was built in 1900, and there are a million older, architecturally significant buildings everywhere. While the idiosyncrasies can be annoying at times, especially in a rental, where you can’t change much, it’s also really neat to think about how much history has happened here. There’s old stuff in Florida, too—I’m thinking particularly of St. Augustine—but the oldest home I lived in was from the 1950s. The different perspective is pretty cool.
Rob and I are closer than ever. Turns out navigating a huge move—and then experiencing a nerve-wracking, 24-hour drive in a truck—can either make you and your significant other fight like crazy or make you closer. While we definitely had our moments, moving to a new city on our own, where we only know a few people, has definitely made us a tighter unit, and we’re loving going exploring—whether it’s walking our own neighborhood, driving through others throughout the city, or exploring the more rural western PA countryside. We’re finding our way—literally and figuratively—together, and that’s really fun.
Moving is an exercise in finding yourself. And I’m not sure where exactly I am on that journey. For the past six months, for better or worse, it kind of feels like I’ve been having an identity crisis. That’s definitely not a bad thing; I think it’s also an effect of the work I was doing in therapy and just plain old getting older (I turned 36 in August). But I was pretty firmly entrenched in my habits in Sarasota—I had very specific routines, as you do when you’ve lived in a place for 13 years, and healthy or not, they’ve all been disrupted. Up here, I’m making my own work schedule, I don’t go into an office, I don’t know many people and, at the most basic level, I don’t know where stuff is or what’s good and bad. (Finding good pizza, for example, has been a project, and I’ve only just stopped using Google Maps to get me everywhere; I haven’t even used public transportation yet.) There’s also been some family trauma—and I don’t use that word lightly—that’s been forcing me to question identity and belief systems and values going back to early childhood. It’s…a lot. And yet I’m grateful for the opportunity to go through it, because I’d rather be uncomfortable than stuck. This post has provided some interesting and helpful resources and, as always, therapy has, too. Butterflies have always held a lot of symbolism for me, and right now it feels like I’m in the cocoon, getting closer and closer to breaking through.
Photo from the cutest restaurant/coffee shop called the Pear and the Pickle, which also happens to be located on one of the steepiest, scariest (to me!) hills in the city. Grateful for all-wheel drive on our Subaru on the trip there, which was worth it for the delicious Stumptown Coffee.
