49 feelings of San Francisco

on stumbling upon myself in San Francisco

Marshall’s Beach — January 2020

Six years ago today, I packed the last of my things into three suitcases and a backpack, watched snowflakes float above the Boston skyline for a final time before I boarded a San Francisco-bound flight. Moving across country to a new city is a funny thing — you say goodbye to nearly everyone you’ve ever known, hop on a flight with everything you own, and seven hours later, you’re “home.”

I landed at SFO as a hopeful, lost 20-something, carrying the weight of her big dreams and a deep yearning to change the trajectory of her life — not just the join-a-startup-and-ride-the-rocketship kind of dream, but a quieter, more subtle desire to stumble upon herself again and remember who she was beneath all the striving.

Despite dreaming of building a life in California for a year before I finally made the move, it was the most on-a-whim-life-altering decision I’ve ever made. The entire move came together — from new job offer in hand to landing at SFO — over the course of 20 days. I couldn’t explain it at the time, but I was swept up by an overwhelming urgency to leave Boston and get started with my life that awaited in San Francisco.

I’d spent most of my life living on the east coast between New York and Boston. The cold winters and conventional ways of being had hardened me. Back in Boston, I’d slowly burned out climbing the traditional corporate ladder. I knew of the Bay Area as a place where untraditional people did untraditional things — where startups were built by founders who, by traditional standards, had no business running a company and yet, there they were running a company.

And that’s the thing about San Francisco that first called to me: a place where traditional scripts are set ablaze, and from their ashes, the freedom to reinvent and self-express emerges. This radical sense of agency that permeates the region manifests as people being fiercely devoted to their work and the way they lead their lives. Every next person you meet is charting a course so uniquely interesting that you’re inspired to redraw your own boundaries and venture into uncharted territory.

What drew me to the city initially wasn’t so different than what I suspect draws many others out here. What surprised me is what kept me here.

After being conditioned to walk through life with a purpose, I wanted to live in a city that could teach me how to create space to tend to my grandest ambitions and slow down — walk for the sake of walking, live for the sake of living.

I moved here to be propelled by the momentum of others making sense of their big dreams. Instead, I found a city that asked of me why I harbored these dreams in the first place — inviting me to question who I was before they ever took hold of me. Were these dreams truly mine or borrowed visions that I’d subconsciously inherited?

What I’ve appreciated most about this city and its culture is how it’s taught me how to feel deeply, pushed me to explore edges that I didn’t know existed, and freed me from the expectations of who I once thought I should be.

In the ensuing years, I’ve come to realize the urgency to move to San Francisco was driven by a homecoming I hadn’t known I needed. For so long, I’d searched for a place where I could freely speak my dreams into existence and be challenged to dream bigger — but what I’d really been seeking was the courage to see myself more clearly and to be seen for who I really am.

On the east coast, I spent most of my life as the minority. Suddenly, in the Bay Area, I was just one of many Asian American women walking down the street, grocery shopping, doing a workout class, living life. For too long, my relationship with my heritage ended with my ability to order the right flavor of dumplings for friends on a trip to Chinatown. Here, there are Lunar New Year parties, cultural identity workshops, dads walking their bi-racial kids to Mandarin Immersion school. It’s a place where Chinese American history is woven into the fabric of the city.

I often reflect on that 20-something who first arrived in this city. The girl who needed several revolutions around the sun to finally settle into who she is. And while the revolutions continue, it’s in large part thanks to belonging to this city that she’s learned to belong to herself.

Despite the lack of seasons here, I’ve cycled through more seasons of losing and finding myself than I can count. More than any place, this city has allowed me to reinvent myself over and over again — because San Francisco is the city of invention and reinvention if you allow it to be.

I originally published a version of this piece on my four year anniversary in 2023. As I read through the list I first curated, I was reminded that despite how much has changed over the last two years, how much has stayed the same and just how persistently my love for San Francisco continues to grow.

In honor of six years, here’s an upgraded list of the feelings and moments brought by life in San Francisco:

1. The fearlessness of walking out of my apartment with a light jacket, only to be met with regret for not bringing an extra layer as the evening chill settles in the city

2. The vindication of encouraging a friend to visit, avoiding Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square at all costs, giving them a real tour of San Francisco, and them arriving at the conclusion of “I get why you love living here so much”

3. The conviction that the Bay Area cold just hits different, not that we’ve all gotten softer

4. The realization that perhaps living here is softening our hardened edges and giving us a deeper capacity to feel

5. The liveliness and buzz of the city on a day that tops 70°F

6. The absurdity of seeing someone in a down puffer walking past someone in shorts, somehow both dressed for the same weather

7. The liberation of wearing whatever I please (probably athleisure) because no one in the city of San Francisco cares

8. The exhilaration of flying down Hawk Hill towards Golden Gate Bridge on a bike ride, reveling in the warmth before the windy ride back over the Bridge

9. The exhaustion of walking up Pac Heights and consequent confusion as to how my leg muscles still haven't adapted to the city's gradient

10. The novelty of walking past a self-driving car and being reminded that the future is always just around the corner

11. The amusement of watching that same car attempt to navigate around a double-parked line of cars in front of a church on Sunday morning

12. The nostalgia for my days cruising down the 101 as a tech shuttle drives past me and the consequent relief that I’m now based in the city

13. The nausea from driving the winding roads toward Stinson Beach

14. The anticipation of whether the drive to Tahoe will take 4 or 8 hours

15. The solidarity of pedaling down the Wiggle alongside other cyclists, all united in our mission to avoid the hills on our ride toward Golden Gate Park

16. The surprise of stumbling upon a new trail in Golden Gate Park

17. The ease of being an outdoors person by simply walking through a neighborhood and onto urban hikes in the middle of the city

18. The fulfillment of discovering new hobbies made possible by this city’s climate and culture

19. The satisfaction of how serious we are about throwing unconventional events

20. The hilarity of debating the perennial question, "What are your thoughts on San Francisco versus New York?" and always concluding that SF is more our speed

21. The wisdom of knowing better than to try and persuade someone who hates SF of all its magic

22. The acceptance of SF despite all its flaws and imperfections

23. The joy that spending time with friends can be more about park picnics and urban hikes than loud bars and boozy brunches

24. The desire for serenity on a trip to Banya only to find a packed sauna filled with people for aromatherapy

25. The contentment of meditating with friends on a Sunday morning

26. The depth of being seen as conversations with friends meander into our hopes, our dreams, and our fears

27. The thrill of RSVPing on Partiful or Luma to see who else is going

28. The spontaneity of running into an online friend at an event at The Commons

29. The boundaries we're working on setting when "let's co-work" inevitably devolves into a deep catch up

30. The inevitability of overhearing someone pitch their AI startup, make the case for psychedelics, and detail their biohacking regimen all within the first three minutes of walking into the coffeeshop

31. The acknowledgment that SF is more of a sleepy town than the center of the universe and loving it all the same

32. The stillness brought by early mornings before the city awakes and traces of eucalyptus linger in the air

33. The gratitude for living in a state with more national parks than any other

34. The awe of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge from any angle, but especially coming over Pac Heights and through the Robin Williams Tunnel

35. The vastness of overlooking the Pacific coast from what truly feels like Lands End

36. The peacefulness of watching waves crash ashore, reminding us that it all comes and goes, ebbs and flows

37. The fear moments before running into the Bay and diving headfirst into the cold water

38. The quietude that descends upon the city as everyone heads home for the holidays or Tahoe for their ski lease

39. The longing for some semblance of seasons to remind us time is in fact passing before us

40. The butterflies of coming home as I land in SFO after time away

41. The certainty that no US airport rivals SFO’s Terminal 1

42. The relief we’re all trying to travel less and prioritize rooting down in the city

43. The pride I’ve cultivated for being a Chinese American woman and realization that the shame I once felt for being different was not mine alone

44. The sense of infinite possibility and the belief the future's ours to build

45. The optimism that we’ll build an intergenerational community with our friends and raise our kids together in or near this city

46. The agency that permeates the city

47. The love I feel for this city even after all this time

48. The appreciation that after all these stages of reinvention, it was always about finding my way back to myself

49. And still yet, the freedom to become more myself

Thanks for being here! What feelings has living in your city or town evoked from you? Leave a comment or say hi on Twitter :)