The city that never sleeps – also my other home. I feel most of the people in my hometown known me for being the New York girl, at it has become my home. I feel like I know this city better than anywhere else, yet there is so much more for me to see. And as cliché as it may seem, a part of my heart will always belong in New York.
When I boarded the plan 4,5 years ago, to spend half a year in New York I wasn’t expecting that I would stay. This sounds very dramatic but it is the truth. I stayed. With a backpack full of dreams and no barely no idea of what to expect, 20 year old me fell in love with the city, the people, the culture. It is nothing like New York. I guess my parents biggest fear was me getting a boyfriend and not ever wanted to come home, and that happened too for a while. I guess you could never ever predict the future.
New York for me has given me so much and changed me a lot as a person, and it is important for me to reflect on this and to share this, because there are so many things during this period that made me end up where I am today with what I do. And I do not think a person who haven’t lived here will quite understand it either. You must experience it, but I will try to explain it as well.
I was 20 years old when I came to New York, coming from Norway quite naive and young you are forced to adapt into an independent lifestyle quite quick. There are no parents to go home to in the weekend, no one to pick up furniture’s at IKEA or drive you to the hospital if you are sick, nobody to fix the apt if it is leaking – you fix it yourself or with your friends, in New York, friends are becoming your family. Mostly because everybody often come from different places. I think this is something of the most beautiful thing about New York, the connection of different people, and how everybody is living next to each other so peaceful and are becoming so close. I know that some of my friends I have met In New York would be my friends forever.
New York might be a hard city to live in, the rent is insanely high, the weather is bi polar and the people you might thought were friends are not. However, the memories and experiences and the opportunities you get weight so much more than that. I do not think New York is a place everybody should live, because after 4 years I realized you need to be quite thick skinned and you learn about sides of you which you never though you had, for better and for worse. But in New York everybody finds there voice or place. One of the reasons why I also loved it is because of the opportunities it gets with work and studying is amazing and the networking you can do.