I Got Broads in Atlanta

In response to my own unease about the winds of change in the city: everything has turned out just peachy. 

I haven't been run out of my own town by pod-people I cannot relate to. In fact, the experience has been something of the opposite. This is the year I've seen the food scene really blow up. Two years ago I got to meet one of the lady entrepreneurs I admire most. Between that last post and now, I worked for the most Atlanta-iest of companies, one that is a household topic of conversation, known by all of the locals. I even sat next to one of the fine individuals behind that whole believing in Atlanta thing every single day.

So I'm here, reevaluating how it all went down before. And it really ain't so bad. In fact, there's not really a "bad" in it at all. The new discoveries feel authentic. That rebuilt market and this other newly opened market have become parts of my daily routine. The folks flocking to my humble town are actually my "people." 

That's probably the most exciting thing. The goodness is coming here, my tribe is magically coming to me, as if I was able to manifest everyone into being in Atlanta. And now I'm ready to put down roots, grow where I'm planted. Here is my city, and I am here with her, still, more than ever.

Happiness is Change, But I'm Not Happy About This

I'm never happy.

That is, I'm always pushing for more. I want more. I want everything in my life to be better in all ways, at all times. I lay out the potential paths my life can take and examine them, constantly. Friends can confirm: I've thought about moving across the country, taking up any number of hobbies (aerial silks, calligraphy, rowing, mountain climbing), and (always) traveling, all in the pursuit of happiness.

I crave change, and my personality demands that I am always growing, stretching, aspiring to be greater.

So people that come into my life and strip into that layer? Those who manage to get close enough to me that I reveal that side of myself? They don't always have it very easy.

So if change is the constant, whose and what can't I accept? One of my first loves': my city. 

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A lot of folks are now saying they "Believe in Atlanta."

But for me, if that means the winds of change result in a Starbucks and Ann Taylor Loft on every street corner, a continually skyrocketing rental market, and an influx of the button-up-shirted brotherhood, I kindly decline. Not interested. That's not a future I can believe in.

One thing I've struggled to find and both yearned to cultivate here are the little pockets of subculture in town. What happens when we move into a phase of wild over-gentrification? Will that automatically take us into a (not-so-wild) period of sameness? And I don't mean in the 2050 new breed of human way.

When the slaughterhouse-cum-apartment-cum-party loft-cum-S&M club on the Westside went through a major facelift, I was furious. The backdrop for wild rooftop fetes, pop-up shows for friends' bands, and wild nights of indoor pyrotechnics was transformed into a place to purchase $1200 chairs. To play bocce ball and drink only while wearing a popped collar.

But given time, I got over it. 

But this is on a bigger scale. 

There's change a'comin. And especially if the more weird, the more cherished cultural oddities, my favorite local and singular businesses are quietly snuffed out, then I'm out.

I'm never happy with the status quo, being stagnant, no. But the swift change from the city I love and have gotten to know intimately to something new and unrecognizable? I just want to keep it weird, here.