February\u00a0has probably been the hardest of the last 8 months I’ve been in\u00a0Detroit and I’m wondering if the\u00a0rose colored glasses I’ve had one since I first traveled here last February are starting\u00a0to coming off.<\/p>\n
First and foremost, it’s the dead of winter,\u00a0with temperatures hitting the negative teens (without windchill!<\/em>).\u00a0Though it’s my third winter in over 20 years, it’s the first one I’ve had to experience from start to finish (unlike grad school, we\u00a0don’t get a month long winter break at Challenge that would allow\u00a0us\u00a0to travel to far-off, warm and\u00a0exotic places) and\u00a0the half-year\u00a0experience starts to weigh down on you eventually! This is nothing against Detroit (although it is a tad colder than NY) – just more of an experiential observation. Now the easier thing about Detroit, as compared with NY, is that\u00a0I have a car, so even in below freezing temperatures, my time outside is limited to the 50 foot\u00a0sprint from my house to\u00a0my car, as opposed to the 10+ minute schlep\u00a0to the subway in NY. The downside of this is\u00a0toll this weather and the streets start to take on your car. Within 3 months of getting my car (full disclosure: I got it used), my shocks were destroyed and a few months later, my alignment was completely warped – so there goes another $500!<\/p>\n At the beginning of December, just as winter was starting to rear its icy head, I moved into my own place. It had been almost\u00a03\u00a0years since I’ve lived on my own, and\u00a0with a few big decisions coming up in the next 6 months (do I stay in Detroit? what do I want to do here if I stay? if I don’t, where do I go?), I thought living by myself would allow for some much needed time\u00a0to reflect and focus on myself. My new place and\u00a0neighborhood (I’m in West Village now!) are beautiful\u00a0–\u00a0I can’t wait until the snow melts and I can take full advantage of the proximity to Belle Isle. But even this\u00a0has come with challenges, like $350+ heating bills and finding out that I can’t have pets at my new place (which led to me having to give up this beauty!). And as I think about what my job prospects may be outside of my current position, the weight of a bleak job market, and one that’s driven by personal relationships more than pure experience, starts to set in.<\/p>\n Reflecting on\u00a0these, among other, experiences, I find myself asking whether this may be the end of my honeymoon in Detroit, where the realities of what life in Detroit is\u00a0like\u00a0in the long-run are setting in. Looking back, life in\u00a0Los Angeles was a breeze in comparison.\u00a0And yet, despite these\u00a0challenges, I have no interest in going back there\u00a0but instead find myself looking for ways to make the most of my time in Detroit, to make it work here. It’s not easy, but the true reality is that I have it so much easier than so many living in the city. And that’s what I need to keep reminding myself – that I came here because I wanted to make a difference, to give back and help rebuild\u00a0the city for the people who have spent their lives living here, and who will remain here, with their families for decades to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February\u00a0has probably been the hardest of the last 8 months I’ve been in\u00a0Detroit and I’m wondering if the\u00a0rose colored glasses I’ve had one since I first traveled here last February are starting\u00a0to coming off. First and foremost, it’s the dead of winter,\u00a0with temperatures hitting the negative teens (without windchill!).\u00a0Though it’s my third winter in over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}