Have you ever visited or lived in a city that made you feel like a magnet? Like even through the annoyances, frustrations, and natural ebb and flow of life, somehow that one city just gets you?
I left Ohio when I was twenty-one years old with a one-way ticket to New York and two suitcases. Eighteen years later, I still get that same feeling I felt when I looked out the airplane window on that first flight—this deep sense of “I belong here.” It’s the only place I’ve ever really felt that way. I’ve never really thought to myself “I don’t think I’m supposed to be in New York” or “New York isn’t for me” the way I have while living in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or most Midwestern cities. New York always feels right, like coming home to a version of myself I can relax into.
I got to feel that feeling again this past weekend while staying in Brooklyn with a good friend I originally met in New York over thirteen years ago. Like so many others, we both left the city back in 2018—me for LA, her for SF. This past weekend we met back in Brooklyn to reconnect for a girls’ weekend. For us, this translates into talking our faces off, eating delicious food, indulging in wine and sweets, walking everywhere through the snow, stopping into our favorite shops, and ending the day with a drink while listening to jazz in the hotel lobby.
I realize it can be easy to romanticize a city during a weekend vacation. I’m not naive enough to think those three days offer more than isolated moments in time where everything feels and seems perfect because by nature of getting away, you are literally escaping the day-to-day to-do’s of everyday life. I’ve always been a Manhattan girl. Even after leaving the city, whenever I came back to visit I’d always stay in Manhattan. But I didn’t hesitate when my friend suggested Brooklyn. Maybe it was just because it was only a weekend trip, or maybe I was subconsciously ready to try somewhere new—but either way, I was down.
I got that familiar feeling of remembrance in the yellow taxi from LaGuardia to Williamsburg. That “oh yeah, this feels right” feeling. But admittedly, walking around solo in Brooklyn before my friend arrived felt different, unfamiliar. I’ve spent time there over the years—dinners, bars, shopping, the usual—but I did feel a little out of place at first. Like, alright where to now? But then it felt like riding a bike. I started navigating the familiar grid layout like in other parts of the city. The rhythm came back. And I started connecting with people so easily.
For me, connecting with people in New York happens in a way that hasn’t happened so naturally in other cities. That’s what I mean by feeling like a magnet. I feel like a magnet in New York. Like I’m seen without the thought of being seen ever crossing my mind. Then it starts happening—this domino effect of small moments that make me feel grateful for life and all the little experiences we get to have.
I walk into a coffee shop and people are just naturally making eye contact with me. I try on a coat in a shop and the owners are engaged in the fit, the experience, offering genuine thoughts about how it looks. I walk into another store and the sales guy starts sharing his personal experience about starting his own eCommerce store, selling out his first drop in the first ten minutes, his word-of-mouth marketing, his whole process, like we’re just friends catching up. I grab a slice of pizza at the end of the night and the boy taking the order smoothly says, “Have a good night. Love you.”
In just one day—eye contact, conversations, interactions, connection happens. Strangers become companions for a moment. The city becomes a mirror.
It feels like remembering who I am.
I lost myself in LA. I reassembled myself into someone new in the Midwest. I remember who I am in New York. Not the person I was at twenty-one with two suitcases and endless possibility, but the person I’ve become throughout all these years, cities, and versions—still carrying that same curiosity that made me buy that one-way ticket in the first place.
