Dear Brooklyn, It's not you. It's me.

I'm spending my final full week as a Brooklynite and feeling the bitter sweet pain of saying goodbye, while looking hopefully towards the next chapter of my life. After 19 years as a New Yorker, I'm heading with my family to live in Marin County, CA.

New York is a city that I've loved from childhood, and the only place I could see myself living as a young adult. With my head full of every cliché dream, I believed it was the place I needed to live to find myself. When I moved here I thought I would work in the art world, where I spent the first few years hustling, but I discovered my path was to lead elsewhere. I've thrived in this inspiring city for a long time, and drew energy from this place. It's helped make me who I am today.

I spent a short time in the first few years living in Manhattan at Times Square and the East Village. The rest of my days were spent primarily in Brooklyn at Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Sunset Park, and in the last 9 years, Park Slope. If you know me, you know I've considered myself a Brooklynite more than a New Yorker. There's an energy, creativity, diversity, and much more relaxed sense of being I've found in Brooklyn that is wonderful. But nothing lasts, and although I thought I'd live the rest of my days residing in Brooklyn, the pull to the outdoors became too strong. With 2 sons that need to bust out, break free from living in boxes, and restraining their boyish need to bounce and scream to be quiet for neighbors, the timing just feels right.

Many of the designers I've come to know, respect and admire have been my neighbors here. This town introduced me to some incredibly smart people who have influenced me, from the original group of IAs that met in Victor Lombardi's IA Salon over 10 years ago, to the more recent impromptu gatherings Lou Rosenfeld, Yoni Knoll, and I have put together with our BK/UX peeps. I've had a good run, and I've met so many incredible people here who I hope to never lose as friends. I hope none of you hold it against me for leaving to the left coast, and I thank you for your friendship.

So it's with a little sadness that I say goodbye to New York, and with hopeful anticipation that I'm welcomed to the Bay Area. If you're in San Francisco, know that I plan to spend a lot of time exploring in your beautiful city, and that I'm always looking for like-minded UXers to have coffee with. I've owed a few people a coffee date for years now.

See you on the other side.