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In Didion’s piece, “Goodbye to All That”, New York City is a place teetering with imbalance. In her account, only those who are young and full of dreams have a place in the city. Didion describes New York City as a place of extremes for her inhabitants. As she writes, New York is a “…city for only the very rich and very poor” (227), and a “…city only for the very young” (227). “Goodbye to All That” is therefore an ode to the fleeting illusions of youth; that magical moment between adolescence and adulthood when anything and everything is possible. Didion’s piece describes how everything that adds to the unlimited possibilities of New York is only then “…irrevocable, everything was in reach” (229). Using geographic boundaries, she delineates the magic of New York City for those who were raised there and those who arrive as newcomers. Didion notes that it is difficult for “…anyone brought up in the East to appreciate entirely what New York, the idea of New York means to us who came out of the West and the South” (231). Those who are newcomers are able to experience the city entirely in its magic; the tall buildings, the cacophony of people and sounds. In doing so, they are able to literally make the city their own. Yet, those of us raised here in New York City, know that the city was never really ours and we are simply lucky enough to be passing through.