El Re-lo Grande
Thoughts on a voluntary middle-aged move
As you may have heard me talk about on the podcast, on the golf course, or in the green room, Team Ollinger is taking its talents back to New York City where this whole thing started in 2004. I don’t take the change lightly.
In the eight years after business school, I moved five times—from NYC=>LA=>SF=>NYC=>LA. There were good, career-based reasons for each change, just as there were strong arguments that I was either searching for or running away from something, almost certainly commitment. And while it doesn’t seem that long ago, it was a different phase of my life and a different world altogether. With each stop on that string of cities, I changed my cell phone number so that I had a “local” area code.
It was exciting to learn new places, but after getting married and buying a house during my second stint in Los Angeles, I enjoyed the feeling of being grounded in a community. I’ll never forget the neighborhood children who decorated our front porch when Stacey and I brought home our newborn son from the hospital.
So, in 2010 when Facebook asked me to transfer from LA back to the Bay Area, I just couldn’t bear the idea of starting over yet again. I decided, “If I’m—we’re—going anywhere, we’re going home.”
I left massive professional and financial upside on the table at Facebook, but moving back to Atlanta nourished my soul. I reconnected with old schoolmates, family, and my hometown. Stacey and I have made great new friends whom we love. My kids have gotten to know their cousins, aunts, and uncles. Most importantly, being close to my parents enabled me to play a meaningful role in the last few years of both of their lives, and I was in the rooms when each of them took their last breaths. Next to being a parent myself, this is probably the most important thing I’ll ever do.
So last fall, when I was walking the streets of NYC and feeling them pull me in, I didn’t mention it to Stacey. But a few days later, with no prompt from me, she asked, “When are we moving back to New York?”
Thus began Phase One of our “Return to NYC” project, which went through three semi-overlapping phases: Theoretical, Logistical, and Emotional.
Theoretical
Within an hour, we were researching Manhattan schools. Applications were due in early November, so we had to move fast.
We made two clandestine trips to tour and interview. It was fascinating to see how classes, lunch, and gym happened in the space-constrained city and to view New York through the eyes of a parent instead of a corporate bachelor. One admissions office was about 100 yards from where I slept from mid-1997 until late 2000. I had no idea it was there.
We completed a dozen or so apps, then we waited. We spent our time kvetching about our uncertain future and making predictions on where we would land. Eventually, the results came in. “Wait list” was the most common outcome—why make enemies by rejecting families outright?—but we got into a few, and we are very excited about where the kids will attend in the fall.
Of course, we didn’t learn this until acceptance decisions came out in late February, so Phase 1 blended into Phase 2 as soon as we finished applying.
Logistical
Moving as a single renter with the help of a big company is no big deal. Moving as a bloated family enterprise with no corporate backing is self-inflicted torture. We knew it would be a lot, so as soon as applications were in, we started prepping our Atlanta house for sale.
We purged mountains—at least 100 boxes—of toys, books, outgrown clothes, and old sheets and towels. We painted inside and out. We patched and sealed the driveway and rebuilt the small fences in the side yard. We interviewed real estate agents and discussed staging and pricing strategies. On their advice, we replaced bathroom lighting, cracked windows, and put down new carpet in the kids’ rooms. “This place looks great,” I told Stacey. “We should stay.”
She didn’t laugh, but if there’s one thing we learned in this process, it’s that de-cluttering and re-investing in your house will make you love it again. Do it.
By the Ides of March, we had “pressed play” on the real estate plan. In just over a month, we sold our primary residence and our place in North Carolina, bought a condo on the Upper West Side, and sold or gave away most of our stuff. Somehow, the books, clothes, golf clubs, and Xboxes that we kept still filled a large moving van.
Emotional
After all this work and getting what you want, you have to deal with the reality of what you’ve designed. Someone asked me, “Are you moving because you’re bored with Atlanta?” Absolutely not. I have relished our time here, and it has been an amazing environment to raise our kids to their early teen years.
From a family perspective, I don’t think living in Manhattan will be better than living in Atlanta. I believe it will be different—a new adventure and an opportunity to grow and learn—for the kids and for us.
But for what I want to do professionally—comedy and, now that I’m searching for a name for it, social commentary through podcasting—there’s New York City, and there’s everywhere else. It’s the center of the media universe. After my recent interview with Chris Anderson, a New York-based author who runs TED, he said, “We should have coffee.” I’m going to reach out to him after I finish this piece.
Most importantly, there’s also this element of not wanting to slow down. At 55, when it would be easy to quietly fade away, I want to stay vital and ensure my growth trajectory remains steep. I am not as dangerously ambitious as I was when I was 32, but I’m still hungry, and I want to see how good I can become in the creative life I’ve chosen.
Nevertheless, I will miss my friends back home and for all social media’s strengths, there’s no replacing the day-to-day encounters. I do expect to see a lot of you when you visit. So if you’re coming to NYC, please call or text. My mobile number will remain the same.
Congratulations Paul - sounds exciting. If you haven’t listened to the Song Exploder podcast about the making of Closing Time you need to - incredible story behind it.