A Love Letter to NYC

How spaces shape us.

There’s so much to be lived, tasted, heard, seen, and felt.

My suitcases, now half-packed, stare at me from the corner of my bedroom.

“Onto the next,” I whisper to myself.

There’s something daunting about the days just before a move — filler days, I call them.

You’re neither fully here nor there, hovering somewhere in between. A liminal space where the heart and mind split between the comfort of what’s known and the thrill of what’s next. It’s all rather bittersweet.

I’ve wanted this move for so long that most of my thoughts are sweet. I don’t really believe in yearning. Reflection, yes. Gratitude, always. But my joy tends to live forward — in what’s coming, not in what has been.

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Didion’s opening line from The White Album (which I’m currently reading) echoes through my mind.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of aimless walking through the city. Half to take it all in, half so I won’t feel the need to return.

This island has seen me grow, fall apart, be reborn, and eventually — thrive. She’s been my greatest teacher.

She’s taught me how to move with love, how to stand unshaken by chaos, how to offer and receive compassion in unforeseen places.

A city built of concrete, seemingly devoid of softness, demands you be your most human self — as if to fight the death of your soul. Both as an act of rebellion and self-preservation.

She’s taught me to guard my time — though I’ve always been good at that.

Here, time is the most sacred currency. And I’ve spent it wisely, or at least on my own terms: in unexpected encounters, quick smiles on crowded sidewalks, in shared meals, and in the utter bliss of watching the Hudson shimmer under golden light.

Now, sitting on a patch of synthetic grass by the West Side Highway, I think of all this city has taught me. I suddenly feel like a cub wanting to curl into her mother’s side — to climb up her leg and rest there for a moment. Just a moment.

My time to go is here. I know it. I’ve known it. But with every goodbye comes a flood of memory whispering, stay.

A gentle kind of Stockholm syndrome.

I think of the streets that have held me through each version of myself. The benches where I’ve sat lost within the confines of my imagination. The restaurants that have given me comfort without even trying. The museums that have seen my curious eyes grow wider year after year. The living rooms that have held both laughter so deep it hurt and earnest revelations.

As I walk these streets — streets that have witnessed and welcomed countless wandering souls such as mine — I feel nothing but love and gratitude.

I think of my favorite artists, long gone, who once came here to make something of themselves. Their melodies have been the soundtracks of my many walks.

You live and you learn, and there’s no better place to witness the vastness of what it means to be alive.

This isn’t my place anymore, and I accept that.

Because that’s what New York does: it asks you to become you. Singular. Whole. Unapologetic.

I urge you all to become all that you are.

Thank you for the love.

You’ve been good to me.