When I think about a time in my life that has affected me greatly, I think about that view. I had known a bit about the city, and by that I mean Manhattan (it took me a while to realize that the city wasn’t just Manhattan) from going to work with my parents on special days. They would tightly grab hold of my hand as we weaved through the crowd in Times Square. Manhattan seemed to me like a city where the settings were turned to the extreme; people everywhere, buildings everywhere, noise everywhere, and various types of smells ranging from streams of cigarette smoke from the person walking in front of me to whiffs of the urine and fecal matter (belonging to God knows who) scattered throughout the streets. Manhattan had always felt like a faraway land belonging to bustling office workers—a chaotic and treacherous place my parents would venture off into during the morning and come back with treats they found in the bakeries near their workplace. I didn’t know that one day that chaos would become my home and comfort. 

Looking back now, it's weird to think that there was a time where I preferred the peaceful and quiet suburban environment of Long Island to the boisterous and lively streets of Manhattan. Back in Long Island, I lived in a house with a yard and went to a local elementary school. We drove everywhere to go to places—to Costo, to Ikea, to malls. I would always walk across my porch to go bother my neighbor’s son, who was constantly annoyed by my visits. They had a garden where they grew vegetables, and a cherry tree outfront. They once invited me over in the springtime to eat the cherries from their cherry tree. I was over-excited and didn’t check to see before I bit into a cherry and let out a horrified scream when I saw a worm lying in the other half (I refused to eat cherries for a while out of fear of seeing the same sight from that day). The nights were silent and tranquil and absolutely pitch black (I would peek out the window, only to find the whole view a landscape of dark, muffled silhouettes). I would often walk to the playground with my grandma where I would frolic in the grass and climb on the monkey bars while my grandma would sit on the bench or practice Tai chi out on the open square in the middle of the park. That was my simple and carefree life in the suburbs. 

When my parents told me that I not only had to change schools, but also move to the city, I was devastated. I refused to leave behind my friends, my school, my park, and my home to leave for an entirely different place. To be honest, the part that I cared about the most was leaving behind my friends. I’ve never been a social butterfly and it felt like after finally making friends, I would have to start all over again. When I started at my new school, I had no one. I felt invisible and it didn’t help that I was extremely shy and quiet. I knew I didn’t fit in with this new group of kids who grew up in the city and seemed so much cooler and more knowledgeable about the world than me. In moments of silence I would talk to myself (a habit that still has not left me) for lack of a better person to confide in and watch as all the other kids laugh and play from the sidelines. When I made my first friend at that school, it felt like things were finally looking up. I was elated, but knew that one friend could not help me get through all of the teasing, bullying and not belonging. I would ride the school bus back home, taking up the space where usually two friends would sit, looking through the window at the sunset, as the city unfurled before my eyes. 

We moved to downtown Manhattan, in Tribeca, in an apartment that overlooked what might have been my favorite view of the city. We would often go to Chinatown and eat at this Pho place and shop at the Chinese markets. Our new apartment was much different than the house in Long Island. Instead of having my own room, I shared a room and a bunk bed with my sister (I was top bunk), and instead of looking out the window and expecting a yard full of green grass and trees, the apartment overlooked endless buildings that stretched out into the horizon until they became little gray shapes. I would gaze at all the buildings (I especially liked to admire the one with a heart graffitied on the side of it) and glance down at the street, tracing its path until it disappeared, watching all the cars snake along, sometimes with ease, sometimes more like a snail—inch by inch through the congestion. At night, sometimes I would roll up the blinds so that I could sleep alongside the city. It felt reassuring to know that so many people in that moment would be sleeping in their beds too. On days where I tossed and turned, feeling acutely awake, it was the city and all that inhabited it that kept me at ease, the still-bright rectangles outside my window letting me know that I wasn't alone, that I wouldn’t have to face this endless night by myself. I felt the magic of the city drawing me in, easing the loneliness. All I had to do was look out my window, and I would see so many other windows, and imagine all the stories that unfolded just beyond my sight.

We only stayed in that apartment for just under a year before our family outgrew the two bedrooms. My brother was born and my grandparents, who flew in from China, were going to live with us for some time and help my parents take care of him. We moved, again, to the Upper West Side, and along with that, I moved to another school. Although my time in that apartment between Franklin and Lafayette was brief, the impact it had on me will stay with me for life. I still remember that Gourmet Garage that opened around the corner of our street the second (and last) year we were staying at the apartment, that Chinese bakery a few blocks away where we bought bread for breakfast for the next day, that ice cream shop down the avenue with all the unique and bizarre flavors (like lychee and wasabi), and that view—the view that accompanied me all along, the view that stayed constant and unwavering when my life felt like the opposite. 

Sometimes we go back to visit our old home in Long Island and to see our neighbors again. Now that I have lived here in the city for over seven years, I don’t think I could ever go back to my old suburban life. I don’t think I could ever give up those crowded streets, city lights, and the feeling I experience every night as I look out my window. I now realize that NYC has been my friend all along.