Being a New Yorker is not easy. I lived in New York for 18 years, and I still have a lot to discover and learn.

I am that person who lives in Brooklyn and does not know a single thing about their neighborhood. I do not even know the name of the streets, besides mine. But I do know how to get to a certain place by memory or even by visualizing a single object on the street. It is weird, but at least I know how to get there. A real New Yorker would relate to this, I get surprised when people give me directions and they explain how to get there by saying things like “Down the block, you know where the white store with the tree, right, go straight then make a left” and somehow I understand. I also give directions like that, but sometimes it gets complicated to describe things. All my life I have been raised in Bushwick located in Brooklyn, sweet old aesthetic Brooklyn. I never imagined my life outside of Brooklyn. I thought of it but always ignored it. I normally do not go outside but sometimes people would say, “Have you been to Shake shack?”, “Did you go to the mall last Tuesday?”, but I would not go anywhere but the corner of my house to get a bounty, or aluminum paper, and napkins. For me being a New Yorker is hard. I was born here, and I still have not explored or got a discount in Urban Outfitters from the mall last Tuesday. Sometimes I would go to the city and stare at the buildings and the lights. People would look at me in a certain way as if I am a visitor or a tourist. You can sense the disgust in their eyes and the way they pass by you. I can see why they would think that I too have found myself to judge someone else and label them as a tourist by the way they would stare and take pictures.

Being in the city gives you a nice feeling and makes you want to stay there and admire the lights and the signs. In Time Square, it makes you feel as if you belonged there your entire life and you feel a sense of freedom you never thought you had. Places like Central Park or visiting the Empire State Building makes you feel like you are walking into a magical place and it captures your ideas of what it is like to be a New Yorker. Even going on the ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty makes you reflect on your life and makes you forget about what you are doing, it is a sense of escape that you need. All the places New York has is a blinding beauty. Certainly, someone who lived in New York their whole life would say that Manhattan is dirty and would start to compare it with the other 5 boroughs. Someone who visits New York for the first time would see Manhattan as a beautiful and majestic place. Other people would say things about Manhattan like it is always crowded, or it always stinks. I dislike being in the city, mainly because I can barely walk without getting pushed or being in a rush or people rudely telling me “what are you looking at” even though I just glared at them. But as a tourist, they see the good and the beauty of it, they like that New York is always busy and people are always in a rush to take the MTA or taxi. That is where New York got the name label as “The city that never sleeps”. As a New Yorker, you do not have time to visit New York’s attractions, unlike a tourist because other responsibilities need more attention like your job, school, or attending your first interview.

I am the type of person who does not like going outside and being in drama. I normally just stay in my room and blast music while doing my homework. That is where it all began. I met this boy one day and he told me if I wanted to hang out, I did not know what to say because I do not normally “hang out”. But I ended up going to see him almost every day. I would always go straight to see him after I left school, even though I had a curfew. But I did not care about the curfew. I normally just ended up lying saying that the train had a delay, or the teacher wanted to talk with me. I sometimes would say that I stayed in the school building for tutoring or help with my college process, just to say I was not with the guy and going to “hang out”. In the essay of Lacy M. Johnson “On Likability,” she mentions that when she was 11 she liked this guy from the basketball team and she would sneak out her friend’s house to go meet up with him because she wanted him to like her. I can agree with this because I would leave the school building and go meet up with him, I thought he was cute, and I wanted him to like me as well. I guess that is why I feel love-struck with him. After all, he was not my first boyfriend, but it felt like it was. I wanted him to like me and I tried my best for him to do so, I would go out with him and listen and do the things he would say such as “Skip first period and come here” I never skipped school and I do not plan on doing so. I told him, no, and I guess he did not like that, maybe that is why he stopped liking me and left.

We were both nonchalant. I noticed that we were shy even if it were to say hi to each other. I liked how he was very shy and very calm. I decided to give him a chance because he was just like me. Unless I thought he was. I liked how he noticed little things about me, and I was afraid to fall in love with him. What if he were not what I thought he would be, what if I were to fall in love and end up heartbroken. But somehow it did not stop me from feeling what I felt. I decided to get to know him, and he took me to a nearby park in Queens. He took me to places in New York City that I never even knew about. I like the idea of going on adventures and that is exactly how it felt during the whole relationship. We would walk around my neighborhood and stop to get a cup of coffee with sweet bread. He would stare at me while sipping on hot black coffee, I would look at him and blush. One thing a New Yorker dislikes is that someone is staring at them. I never liked the idea of me going to another place besides Brooklyn and Manhattan especially with someone who is a boy. I guess he took me out of my shell and got me to go to places, he knew that I only would go to the corner store or just the laundromat that is up the block from me. We would go out to eat almost every time we saw each other. I liked how he only noticed me for me. I would be ashamed of being with him because I always second doubt myself. What if I am not pretty enough? Or What if one day he gets tired of me? Either way, he would take me to places and I enjoyed being with him. I liked the feeling of going against things. I wanted to feel something and go out and make mistakes and learn on my own. I wanted to feel what “freedom” was. I wanted to figure myself out.

I was afraid of getting comfortable with him and letting him know my darkest secrets, but he acted as if that was normal. He did not force me to tell him what I felt or tell him everything in one day. It is as if he understood me so well, deep inside I wanted to tell him how badly I was treated by my ex and tell him that I was afraid of love. It was like he knew what I wanted to say, he made me feel safe and loved. I would always imagine my love life in Manhattan and looking at the lights and getting a feeling of being away from everything. He made it feel like that, I was happy in my world with him.

Things started to get distant. He started working and had less time to see me. He told me that I should move on, he said he was sorry that he did not have enough time for me. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I noticed that things were not okay, and I would always tell him if he is okay and he would always sugar coat things to me. I did not beg him to stay, as soon as he told me he was going to leave, I just wished him good luck. My life was okay. I wanted to distract myself. I was not going to bring myself down. I noticed that I can still feel happy with or without him. It was fun while it lasted. One thing he did tell me was to live life and to not care and think about the future, but to live in the moment. I knew from there on, that he was right. I was always focused on the future instead of living in the moment. That is why I am so stressed and so distant from everyone. I tend to focus more on the future and never really take time to realize the moment I am in. In Joan Didion’s essay “Goodbye to All That” she says “I want to tell you what it is like to be young in New York, how six months can become eight years with the deceptive ease of a film dissolve.” I can relate to her saying this because my relationship with the boy happened so slow yet ended so fast. Like the saying of “Love comes so slow, but it goes so fast” The time was so fast, and it was imaginable that it would be so. I would always think of the future and later then think that I am in the future. It is crazy how it is about to be a year since I saw him, a year since I left him on seen. That is the part of life, time passes so fast in New York. I got used to it and that is why I never focus on the present

After we broke up, I was okay, but then it hit me, and I was crying for almost 3 hours- nonstop- and I went to wash my hair that night. I never realized that he would leave again. When things were not okay, I wanted to leave him, but something in me did not want to so I stayed. In Joan Didion’s Essay, she says “I cut myself off from the one person who was closer to me than any other. I cried until I was not even aware when I was crying and when I was not.” I can relate to this phrase because when I went to the shower to cry, I kept crying and I thought I stopped crying until I touched.my face and it was wet. I ended up crying myself to sleep, I did not even notice that I was still crying, My eyes were hurting the next day and I wanted to cut him off from my life forever but then I did not, instead, I cut myself off from my friends and started to blame myself for what happened. I did not want my friends to say “I told you, you should have left him” I did not talk to anyone that day. My friends noticed that I was having a hard time since the breakup and took me out more to the city. I went to Manhattan and we would go shopping and I was happy. I also notice that I was more open to people. I got to see more opportunities that New York had to offer me. I decided to go to the city more, and I noticed that I normally never liked going outside. But something somehow made me change that. I had an internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. I did the internship for six weeks, and I realized so much, such as New York City is the place I should be at. I realized that the city has a lot to offer me, I knew that I want to spend the rest of my life here. I want to be able to help my mom, being an immigrant in the big apple is not easy. She came to America by visa and she took the opportunity to work and help her family, she left my brother who was only 14 at the time. I can imagine what it’s like to leave your child and help your family. She stayed in New York for more than 10 years, even though she told me she was going to stay for 7. My mom never imagined staying here for all those years. I want to pay back everything she has done for me, of course, it is impossible to do so because what she has done, has no price. I want her to know that her sacrifices were not for nothing, I wanted her to see that she made the right decision in coming to America to change the norm from her country. In Lacy M Johnson essay “On Likability” she writes “People who have immigrated to this country are told they are unlikable when they “take American jobs” My mom works as a home attendant and she was a professional public accountant back in her country, there were many times I have encountered with that phrase and I would get mad because immigrants would do the jobs that regular Americans would not do. She would always tell me that she does not want to see me working at an Mc Donald’s or a retail store, I honestly thought why? But to her, those jobs are jobs that undocumented people take. She said I was born here, and I should be working in an office. I never said anything to her, but I guess she is right.

I thought living in Brooklyn was nice and everything here is aesthetic and beautiful. Even though I live in Brooklyn, I hate that I lived two blocks away from the M train, I also did not like going outside with my mom because I was afraid of seeing someone I know. My anxiety was bad, and I always thought when I would pass by a group of girls, they were either laughing at me or talking about me. It was all in my head, I decided to not be this way anymore because I was annoyed at the fact that I always have to say something bad about myself and not accept myself. I wanted to change that habit, so I went out more with my mom, and I just ignored and did not care about it

While living here in New York City, I have a lot of plans for my future. I know that I do not want to leave. New York City is the city of opportunity and I agree. I realized that everyone is looking for the same thing and that is to complete their goal. My goal is to have my mom with me, and I want to do things normal New Yorker’s do, which is to find love, get a job, start a family, and just be happy. I want to graduate from college and figure myself out. I have a lot of dreams and I think one day, I will be someone. But for now, I must have fun and make mistakes, and of course, just go with the flow.

Lacy M Johnson writes” Think for a moment how much time you have spent in your life replaying conversations where maybe you said the wrong thing,” I can say that I have thought many times I have said something wrong to certain people, especially to that boy. I wished I should have ended it first but things happened, I’m glad he ended it on his end, I did not want to have that feeling that I let someone close to me go. I have also thought about how I said the wrong things towards myself, I wanted to show myself that I was smart, In middle school, I would always play in my head the time I had believed that I was not going to graduate high school and I thought about it. I hated how I believed such a lie during those three years until I went to high school and that changed. Although I can relate to Lacy M. Johnson and Joan Didion’s essay based on their experience of New York, I can say that they are both such amazing authors. Lacy M Johnson writes “You deserve to tell the story of your anger and heartbreak and regret.” I never thought I would end up writing about my life here in New York and I guess I should have written about it when I was feeling sad, happy, or even confused. Their stories are so similar yet so different from mine. I guess their experience let them be a better person or a happier person and that is the thing we all have in common, I left a relationship and began working to love myself and help my mom. Joan Didion left New York because she realized that it was not a place she wanted to be at and she moved, she saw that New York was just a place people go to “fool around” she did not find herself here. Lacy M. Johnson wrote about her experience and she wanted her daughter to know that it was okay to be different, she explains how she was her daughter’s age and have made mistakes. I guess that is something we will all experience a wave of difference that will help us change into a person for the better. I want to make mistakes and learn from them. My time will slowly come.