A love letter to New York.
I moved to New York six years ago, and I distinctly remember googling, “how long do you have to live here to be considered a New Yorker?”
Seven years.
I remember thinking that seems like a really long time. Now, as I approach the start of my seventh year here, I’m completely confident that at no point before now, does it really all click.
I didn’t particularly like New York City before I moved, but I was determined to prove to myself and everyone else that I could make it a full year. And now, six years in with plenty of battle scars and tears, I look back at this crazy experience in complete awe of the journey. New York is both remarkable and really fucking hard.
Making it even this far is an incredible personal accomplishment, so to celebrate, I’ve written you a love letter, New York.

I ♥ N Y
I love you in the fall, when the season changes, and with it, everything else.
When I can’t smell steaming garbage anymore and I’m reminded that you too have your good and bad days.
When I have a ‘when-it-rains-it-pours’ kind of day, can’t laugh it off anymore, and I just need to walk down a busy street sobbing. When I feel so physically alone and invisible, yet I’m surrounded by hundreds of people.
When I get to witness the incredible beauty that comes with being alone in this city on my very worst day and embracing solitude and independence, over loneliness and sadness.

When I’m forced to learn that change is hard but change is good. Storefronts change every week but I learn to accept and embrace that my favorite restaurant has turned into a pilates studio.
When somehow you help me keep it together when my best friends move and I’m forced into the discomfort and excitement of making new ones.
When I sit on my couch, judgement-free, order food, and binge watch TV alone. And when you subtly tell me enough is enough, and force me to go out.
I love you in the winter when the snow falls, and I get a glimpse of beauty through the chaos.

When I get on a busy subway car and I’m wedged between the door and eight other people, but I get a spot with a window.
When I’ve lived here for six years and am still overwhelmed with emotion when I catch a glimpse of your skyline on my morning commute. Six years later, this life is still beyond my wildest expectations.
When I walk through Soho carrying my lunch back to work and I walk down busy sidewalks filled with tourists taking photos. I’m reminded that there are people who have traveled here to take photos of the places I walk everyday.
When I get to witness something simple but genuine and special. Like 15 New Yorkers on all four corners of an intersection, stopped in their tracks with a smile just to watch two big fluffy dogs meet. When we all feel the energetic, uplifting joy that radiates from two happy dogs.

I love you in the spring, when everything is cliché and so New York.
When a man being walked by eight dogs attached to his belt passes by. I can only laugh about how New York dog walkers and their dogs represent the absolute best variety of NYC.
When I hear a subway performer so good that I’m forced to stop, remove my headphones, and listen; because their raw talent — unexpected, up close and personal — is energizing.
When the ice melts and I’m finally ready to leave Brooklyn on the weekend to get drunk with friends on a Saturday afternoon. On New York weekends, even if you’re 29, you’re 22 for as long as you want to be.
I love the secrets and rituals, and the silly things we share.
When we hover in between train platforms, waiting to see which train comes first, and we signal to each other — a new stranger every day — that our train is here, and we all sprint up or down the stairs.
When we get on the train platform and know exactly where to stand to enter the right subway car at the right door, to cut down on the commute.

When someone turns a subway platform WET PAINT sign into T-PAIN.
When Showtime happens and we are simultaneously annoyed and fascinated that nobody has gotten kicked in the face yet.
When we learn for the first time how the lights on top of a cab work, and successfully hail our own.
When food delivery scooters zoom by breaking every traffic law. And they’re always red with custom built-in mittens for maximum efficiency.
When people on unicycles drive through the East Village and nobody even turns their head, because this kind of thing is just normal.
When New York is peak meta, and a Citibike employee rides by on a Citibike with a trailer full of Citibikes.
When it rains — hard — and there’s a sea of umbrella casualties filling the gutters, sidewalks, and trash cans. And they’re all the exact same bodega umbrella with a hook, that is universally owned and despised.
When people sell water bottles on corners, mango slices on sidewalks, and cold churros on subway platforms. When I think, who would ever buy a miscellaneous bag of mango slices or cold churros, but then I remember I have.

I love you because while you’re so unbelievably big, you’re the smallest city I’ve ever lived in.
When I walk down the street and knock on the window of my bodega, and wave at my bodega guys, or when my barista asks how my new job is.

When the bouncer at my local bar texts me to tell me that my ex is inside, and all I can do is laugh, because New York is so small and so weird.
When I’m in a city with eight million people and still end up standing directly behind my neighbor in the airport taxi line. Or running into a friend at restaurant I’ve never been to, in a neighborhood I almost never visit.
When something happens in the world that makes me question this country and my neighbors — like immigration bans and acts of visceral hate — and instead of falling apart alone, we all rise together with a calm but emotional energy. I can feel the camaraderie between New York friends, acquaintances, and strangers, that all know we are better, together.

I love you for helping me create a life I could have never imagined.
When I do something particularly normal in my day-to-day routine, but sit back, reflect, and remind myself that this is not what I expected.

“Remember all the times you cried in high school? When you missed the game-winning goal? When you only got a 3 on your AP exam? I know it’s hard to believe now, but someday, none of that will matter. Soon, you’ll live in a one bedroom apartment in New York City and drive a Vespa to work. You’ll be 30 and single, with way too much student debt, and you’ll really like going to yoga. You’ll go to concerts alone, get tattoos and a nose ring, and climb Machu Picchu with one of your best friends.”
Life does not go as planned, and for the most part, I’ve learned that it’s better to forget about the plan all together.
Life has taken me on more emotional rollercoasters than I would have asked for, but one thing has remained consistent over the last six years. New York is an incredibly special place to become an adult and the only city where I want to ring in the next decade.
New York, I love you. Thank you for being my city.
