A Girl Alone In New York City

I know every blogger under the sun likes to rave about how amazing New York City is.I know how they all churn out some wonderful fairytale about how it’s all eating bagels in Brooklyn and hopping on and off the subway without a care in the world as you make your way to a different swanky rooftop bar every night.

I know how they like to ignore the fact that it’s difficult to walk anywhere care free because the sidewalks are crammed full of impatient New Yorkers running every where, or how there’s even less room on the sidewalks when you factor in the subway vents that around 80% of people don’t want to walk over. They ignore the fact that at a certain time of night the businesses throw their trash bags into a lovely pile on the street and the warm evening breeze carries the scent across the city so there’s a perpetual garbage smell throughout the summer (this is perfectly captured in *Coyote Ugly* when it’s a lovely summers night and they’re romantically lying on a car bonnet next to the Hudson and he’s all like ‘oo you can write a song about this night’ and she’s all like ‘yeah I can call it down wind from a trash barge‘.)

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These bloggers tend to miss out the fact that even just being awake in NYC seems to drain you of your money, but they like to paint a perfect picture where you don’t need to worry about things like that because NYC is ~magical~. But you know what? NYC is magical, but not because of the things these bloggers say it is and not despite its imperfections.

It just is.

New York is the most wonderful place I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. The happiness it made me feel and the personal growth I did whilst I was there can never be beaten by anywhere else. The feeling of exhilaration you feel as you stand at the top of the Rockefeller center watching the sunset over the most famous skyline in the world is not ever something that I think can be put into words. It has to be experienced.

When I got on the plane in London I had no self-confidence, happiness always seemed just a little too far out of reach and I never really felt like I belonged. But that changed when I left the airport on the other side of the Atlantic, stepped out into the familar wall of holiday heat and became engulfed in the city smog. It changed when I pushed down the feelings of being completely overwhelmed as the bus I was on crawled through the Times Square crowds and my nerves gave way to an excitement I’d never before felt.

There was one thing I realised in those first few moments; New York makes you feel alive.

Being a girl alone in NYC makes you feel confident, formidable, empowered. NYC can make a girl alone feel ready to conquer the world. Hear me roar.

I think a large part of what the city did to me- for me- was down to the fact that I was a girl on my own. When I was there in a group I was allowed to fade into the background, and be drowned in the crowd, but as a girl on my own I had to stand out, be defiant. The city wouldn’t allow me to fade into nothingness. If you don’t want to it won’t let you. There’s nothing you can’t do in the city where dreams are made- as long as there’s nobody standing in your way.


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