I am from New York City. Anyone meeting me will inevitably find out about that within the first 5 minutes of conversation. As with everyone, your hometown stays with you and helps shape who you are for better or for worse. I have the pleasure of my hometown being one of the most important cities in the world. However, I’ve always had an intense desire to leave. At first, I believed it was because my family lived all around the world and I had exposure to travelling and life in various countries. However, at 18, I got the chance to fulfill my dream of moving to Europe as I went to university in a central European city. 

I made amazing friends in university. I felt my life in Europe begin to flourish while my life back home became a distant experience that I only had to tend to for a couple of months each summer. I let my friendships back home fade, and then began to panic at the growing fact that I had to go home indefinitely once I graduated. I always knew this was going to be the case, but being faced with that reality was daunting. Looking at my contact list, I texted everyone I could without it being too random, and I hung out with those people, but it ended up being once a month catch ups instead of the casual but intense friendships I have grown to love and desire. 

Being at university, I began to realize, as I went through different but also frustratingly similar trials and hardships, that my journey out of New York was less about the city and more about myself. I wasn’t just my 21-year-old self walking the streets of the city, I was myself at 16, hating my body and myself at 14, figuring out my sexuality and being shamed for it, and every single other age. Every emotion I’ve ever had was experienced here first, and I felt it linger in the air like fog that wouldn’t go away. 

So I found myself trying anything to be able to bring air back into my lungs and life. I would go online and search every combination of keywords until I found events I liked and would be able to travel to. My first attempts were with book clubs, as you can find numerous free book clubs in the city. Reading has always been something I loved, and with this discussion with my peers, I felt that open up. Every time there was a lull in the conversation, I found myself speaking up and giving my opinions. I tried my best to stay with the group once the club was over and head out with them, but now my social battery was spent, and I had a bit of a journey back home. The next event I found was a book conversation and signing being held in a museum. The topic of the book was one I was really interested in, and the talk itself was free, so I made my way once again to lower Manhattan. This experience was harder for me, one that brought me back to all the hard feelings I associate with home. Everyone around me knew each other and knew the author. They were hugging and laughing and not only did I feel like I was out of place, I felt like I was in the way. I knew I needed to look inside and find a way to quell all these feelings of discomfort. 

It’s easy to lock yourself away in your room and find comfort online. Putting myself in the open, in the line of fire, open to people's looks and words was, and still is, extremely difficult for me. When I'm in public, and I feel like this, I so desperately want to pull out my phone and scroll and pretend I don’t care. But I do care, a lot, and I’m learning that is not a bad thing. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed and anxious, but the most important outcome is that you try your best to stick it out. Being out and embarrassed like this is a skill that needs training. Eventually, there will be no intense fears by attending events alone, and eventually you will keep on running into the same people and unexpectedly build that community you want anyways. 

The beautiful thing I've learned about New York, or most big cities, is your ability to lose yourself in them. Spending time in them will have you realize your life is exceptionally calm or calm enough for the day. You will see people shouting, kissing, performing, defecating, wearing an extremely intricate outfit, walking with a snake on their arms, and a million other things. People in the city have places to be. They weave around you and pay you no attention. But if you open your arms, allow yourself to be taken in by everything all around you will eventually find your groove and your place. It may not look like what you wanted, but it will be yours nonetheless. I will walk around each day and embrace what life has to offer me, even if it's just the beauty of people walking around being themselves.