Dear New York City,
I have been living here for a little over a year now, and in the little time that I have been here my life has changed drastically. I am no longer the scared 18-year-old girl that arrived to New York in April, 2015 just to go to school; I am a 19-year-old woman who goes after what she wants, who isn't scared to have goals and try to pursue them. In the year that I've been here I've become someone who is no longer afraid of anything, and I have you to thank for that.
When I arrived a year ago, I was fearful, shy, anxious, and completely clueless of what I had to offer. I thought that I was a girl from a small town (and a small country), and that I knew nothing about the world and how it works - I was basically Jon Snow. I would never try to stand out, I would stay at home waiting for opportunities to come knocking on my door, and I had a hard time making friends. Actually, in my first semester in St. John's it took me two weeks to even speak to someone. This actually comes as surprising to the people who know me now because they describe me as "social", "extroverted", "fun", and "very out-there". Now that I think about it, even I am surprised to think that I used to be shy and uptight.
However, ever since I moved here I have evolved in more ways than one: I look for opportunities instead of waiting for them to come to me, I pursue my goals and do everything in my power to get them, but most importantly: I am no longer afraid to fail. The fear of failing used to keep my awake at night: "what if I don't get it?", "what if I'm not good enough?", "what if I fail?". Don't get me wrong, just because I'm no longer afraid to fail does not imply that I WANT to fail or BELIEVE that I won't fail: I have simply accepted that failure is a part of life, and that sometimes when a door closes another one opens. I now know that even if an opportunity doesn't become a reality, there are many other opportunities out there for me; all I need is to have the courage to go after them, and I have that now.
All I want to say, New York, is that you have showed me how I want to be for the rest of my life: through your hardworking citizens that are always grinding, to the pace of the city that never sleeps, to the fact that this is the city where you can make it if you have what it takes (and by that I mean courage, patience, intelligence, and strength), you have shown me that the people that truly make it in life are those who give everything into what they do and 100% each time. You have shown me that to make it out there, in the real world, I have to be intelligent enough to know which opportunities are good for me; patient enough to know that not every opportunity will be a reality; strong enough to wake up every morning; and courageous enough to go out there every day and find new opportunities, because that is what life is all about.
Thank you, New York City. This has been the best year of my life.
Here's to many more to come.
Cheers to you.
