I was, again, determined to move to New York City, more so even than before.

 That was the upshot of three hot and heavenly weeks perched in a perfect apartment in Greenwich Village atop the Red Line last August. The trains rumbled underneath, like the city was growling—or purring, depending on the mood. Unencumbered by work, I spent my days traipsing from café to bar to restaurant, laptop in tow, my novel at my fingertips, its progress quickening as I settled into the city.

 One night I drank a bottle of red wine while sweating in the steam-box apartment, the hot air pushing in all the open windows, the air conditioner busted. Thus inspired, or maybe addled, by heat and alcohol I wrote my mom an email that was a confusion of impulses and impressions—me sorting out so much nonsense from the sense of my life, all of which I will certainly not bore you with. But the conclusion reached was this: After 20 years of living in San Francisco, maybe it was time for a change. A really huge, sweeping change.

 Maybe it was time, at last to move to New York.

 I returned to San Francisco, my determination intact. It was time to change. It was time to do things differently. I was too young to be so settled in one place. Then came February, and I lost my job and was suddenly presented with the perfect opportunity to do exactly what I had planned. I would expand my job-hunt to New York and shake things up.

 Or would I? I had left for New York the previous August with the kind of contempt for San Francisco that only familiarity can breed. Oh, San Francisco, I thought. You are so fucking provincial sometimes. You and your annoying burners and your constant wafts of pot smoke, and your broken, ridiculous excuse for public transit, and your paltry, greedy cab fleet, and your homogenous weather, and your bands of pungent dogs and trustafarians, and your yuppie-and/or-hipster-infested neighborhoods.

 But in the months since I’d been back, I had become re-enamored with the city—and with my cozy, fabulous rent-controlled apartment within it. I loved the pervasive whiffs of pot, the colorful weirdoes on every street corner, the long opportunities that Muni afforded me to listen to audio books and catch up on my Scrabble games. So the sudden option of NYC seemed…well, foolhardy as well as frightening. Do I push this? Do I gut the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to at the ripe age of 37 and move to the greatest city in the world in order to live like a broke college student? I do not relish the idea of living in New York on a shoestring—though I know it’s possible. But more so? I do not relish the idea of doubling (at least) my rent for the dubious privilege of moving into a flat with roommates in Brooklyn or Queens.

 So, I’m thinking San Francisco is stuck with me for the time being. At least until my career gets to the point that I can demand at least twice as much of a salary as I’m making now. So I can afford to make the move more of a lateral one, and less of a backslide.

 Unless…unless.

 There’s always that unseen, unanticipated variable, what I’ve come to think of as “the third option”—the one that in all your careful logistical ruminations you did not anticipate.

 And New York will still be there, after all.