Why I Moved to the Hamptons Full‑Time at 33

Hi everyone,

Last week, Brian, Frances and I moved out of our home in Los Angeles and drove as far east as we possibly could, to a place we will live for at least the next year, and possibly — hopefully — for much, much longer: the Hamptons!

(Well, a specific town in the Hamptons, but because it’s our first time living in a small town instead of a big city, my husband has requested I keep my often big-open-book-mouth shut in the name of privacy. Fair.)

When I announced the news yesterday, I got dozens of questions asking, Why the Hamptons? Also fair. I got inquisitive vibes from these Qs rather than snarky ones, and after two years of deciphering tone in my comment section and DMs, I’d say my interpretations are correct 60% of the time.

I fell asleep last night thinking about the reasons we chose this location, eager to share them with you. There are many. I have a whole list. But this morning, laying on the floor of our new house, alone, staring into the vaulted ceiling, I thought of a reason less tactical than the others: it’s about unconditional love.

I think about this a lot. Is unconditional love real? Does it exist in even the strongest marriages? When have I felt it in my life? Is it even something we should aspire to?

Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as unconditional love between humans, except perhaps the love my grandma showed me. Perhaps love the feeling is unconditional, but certainly not love the verb. I know my husband’s love for me is cosmic and inevitable and in sickness or in health, but it also has conditions, like every relationship. And shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t we have some terms for which we will express love and receive it, even if those terms are as expansive as the distance between my hand and the sun? And hypothetically, if we can’t find unconditional love in other people, where can we find it? I know I’ve found it in writing, and in my dog, and I think we can find it in places, too.

That’s where the east end of Long Island comes in, along with many other coastal or seasonal towns. The Hamptons, I believe, knows a thing or two about unconditional versus conditional love.

“You mean, for the summer?” people ask when we tell them our plans to live here, as if we’re confused by our own narrative.

“But it’s dead in the winter?”

“Everything closes?”

“There’s no young people?”

(All posed as warning statements, rarely genuine questions.)

There’s something about deliberately choosing a place like this — a place so many people love, but conditionally — that speaks to me.

I see the places we live as a main character in our lives. It’s part of why I’m drawn to novels where the setting is character, too — Indiana in John Green books, the house in The Dutch House, or Hampden, VT in The Secret History. Where we spend our time matters just as much as who we spend it with, and I wonder if I’m drawn to this place because I hope that by pouring some of my unconditional love into it, it will pour its love back into me. (I imagine it’s this same pursuit that drives people to live in small apartments in New York City their whole lives: it gives them something no lover can in return.)

Because for all I question the merit and worth of a concept such as unconditional love, of course I want it. Of course I do.

I have some fears about sharing this idea — which really, truly, is just an idea — because I might be wrong. My love for our new town might turn out to be conditional — which, to my point about relationships, isn’t even a bad thing.

Come January, perhaps we’ll be lonely. Perhaps living here will limit our careers. Perhaps the schools won’t be “good enough” for the children we don’t yet have, who won’t even need school for many years down the line. (Cue my eye roll at all the people who have asked me about this.)

One night in Los Angeles last summer, at dinner with one of my best friends, Natalie, I mustered my courage and told her about this possible move. I watched her face fall just as mine did as I said it, and then I told her where we were thinking, and recognition swept across her face. She said nothing, just listened. A few minutes later, tears in both our eyes, she said, “I’m obviously devastated. But as soon as you said the spot, it made perfect sense.”

And it does. It’s not without complications or question marks, but it makes perfect sense. I suspect this is a place where unconditional love is found. Time will tell.

More soon,

Hayes

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