Two years ago this week I landed at JFK with two suitcases, a fashion degree, and a confidence I had absolutely not earned.
Tonight I'm on my fire escape on the Lower East Side, off the Delancey F stop, watching people spill out of the bars on Orchard Street, and I'm doing that dangerous thing where you take stock.
Two years in New York. That's what I keep turning over. Two years since I cried in an Uber on the Van Wyck because everything smelled unfamiliar and my phone plan didn't work yet.
The first year New York and I were not friends. It was expensive and loud and it did not care whether I made it. I called my mother too much. I compared every roti to hers and lost every time.
But somewhere in year two the city stopped being a place I was visiting and became a place I lived. I have a bodega guy. I have a train I complain about with real personal betrayal (the F, always the F). I have a laundromat and a coffee order and people who'd notice if I vanished.
Two years in New York taught me that belonging isn't a lightning strike. It's accumulation. It's the slow build of small familiarities until one day the skyline feels like it's yours.
I still miss Ahmedabad in my whole body. That never left, and I've stopped waiting for it to. I hold both now. The girl on the fire escape and the girl on her Nani's terrace are the same girl.
New York didn't fix me. It just made room for me. That's more than I asked.
Here's to year three, and to whoever's crying on the Van Wyck tonight. It gets softer. I promise.
Love,