It was well after midnight when the taxi left Newark Airport and sped along I-95 toward Manhattan. As we approached the city, an enormous half-moon hung in the sky, and the Empire State Building – lit up like a Christmas tree in red and green – sparkled in the distance. My eyes, tired yet watchful, remained ever forward.

After I had unpacked my suitcase, sorted through a stack of mail, and inventoried the contents of the kitchen, I crawled wearily into bed. My body was exhausted, but to my dismay my wired brain simply wouldn’t shut down. It wasn’t until the sun threatened to rise that I finally fell asleep.

A day and a half later, I boarded a subway train bound for downtown. I didn’t want to go. The fog of jet lag was still thick, the temperature had dropped into the teens, and snow was in the forecast. But, at the urging of a friend, I’d signed up for an intuitive reading at a place called The Alchemist’s Kitchen in the East Village, and it was too late to get my money back. Besides, I needed an excuse to leave my apartment. So, I went.

Once there, I took my seat across from a woman named Victoria. She jotted down my name on a piece of white, unlined paper, then proceeded to look at me in that unnerving way “spiritual” people sometimes do when they’re trying to read your mind. Or maybe it was just unnerving to me, concerned as I was about what someone might find in those dark recesses.

“I keep hearing the word move,” she said. “What does that mean to you?”

“Uh, I just moved here. About three months ago.”

“That’s great. Welcome.”

“Thanks.”

“Is there something you want me to ask your spirit guides?”

“Well. . . I’m not really happy here. I think maybe. . . I made a mistake.”

She looked at me and smiled.

“I felt that way, too, when I first came here from Ohio. But three months is nothing. You’re still in the adjustment period. Wait until spring before you decide anything.”

Wait until spring. If there’s one theme that’s been running through my life lately, it’s that: Wait until spring.

It was last spring when I decided to move to New York. I’d rented a tiny apartment on the seventh floor of an old building in Greenwich Village, and spent my days covering miles of Manhattan on foot. I toured theaters and talked art and literature with friends and strangers. I held meetings over delicious meals and cocktails and coffee. All the while, the weather ran hot, then cold. One day, it rained. Another day, a lightning storm. But even the unpleasantries were somehow beautiful, perhaps because they were short-lived. Tulips bloomed on street corners, and friends gathered to share news on park benches, and everything felt hopeful and full of possibility.

I moved to New York because I wanted to change my life. Because as much as I love Los Angeles, I was too comfortable there. I was coasting through my days with no clear sense of direction, no real feeling of purpose, no evidence of personal growth. And I was terrified that I’d wake up one day and find that I’d spent a decade that way, without having challenged myself, or accomplished anything I was proud of.

So now I’m here. The trees are barren. The snow is falling. The wind chill is well below freezing. And there’s no relief in sight. And in the heart of winter, I’m finally realizing a truth that should have been obvious all along: you don’t change your life by changing your address. You change it by looking within, by asking yourself difficult questions, and by finding the courage to answer them. For me, most of those questions revolve around what I’ve been holding on to that I need to let go of. My guilt for all the ways I’ve failed, both myself and others. My attachment to a past that’s not coming back. And the story I’ve been telling myself that there are things for other people that aren’t for me; that “almost” is good enough.

As I write this, I’m sitting in my living room, looking out over the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. It’s January fourth. The sky is white, the snow relentless. But every few minutes, a subway train rattles past my eighth-floor window, some brave soul in a puffy neon jacket clears the sidewalk with a snow plow, and life goes on.

And on the eighth floor of an old brick building on La Salle Street, wrapped in a blanket, note pad and pen in hand, lucky enough to have nowhere to go and nothing to do except watch the snowfall and write, I made myself a promise: I won’t move again until I’ve answered the difficult questions. No matter how hard it gets, no matter how uncomfortable it is.

And if, in the process of answering those questions, life leads me elsewhere, that’s fine. But for now, it has led me here. To New York, in the winter, a place where – despite the cold and discomfort – countless doors have been opened for me, if only I can be humble enough to recognize them, and brave enough to walk through them.

Eventually, winter will end. Spring will come again. And I’ll be here, waiting.

Until next time, friends.