Courtesy of Zoe Woolrich
- I grew up in Manhattan and went to college in upstate New York.
- After graduating from college, I moved back to the city and felt like a stranger in my hometown.
- I slowly learned that my hometown can evolve with me and that I just need to learn more about it.
When most people move back home after college, it's to the familiarity and comfort of their hometown. But my hometown is New York City, and after graduating, it didn't feel much like home.
I grew up on the Upper East Side. Over the span of 17 years, I familiarized myself with my surroundings. The neighborhood was still and simple; anything I could ever need was within walking distance.
Manhattan was my hometown.
But then I started getting older, and the walls of the UES started closing in on me. Every street felt the same; every person looked the same. Being a queer teenager in the city was supposed to feel freeing, but the UES felt like white picket fence suburbia. I was living in the big city, but it suddenly felt so small.
When I graduated from high school, I felt that I needed a dire change.
Living upstate was a breath of fresh air
I decided to enroll at SUNY New Paltz in upstate New York.
I quickly fell in love with my upstate college town. For someone who spent their whole life having to take an elevator ride down 33 floors to go outside, living upstate felt like real freedom.
But long-term New Paltz, New York, was never meant for me. My whole life, I fell asleep to the sound of sirens and cars honking. The hustle and bustle of the city became soothing to me. I longed for it throughout my four years upstate. I know I felt confined in my teenage years, but going back as an adult felt like it would be less jarring. Where I ended up was now in my control.
By my junior year, I knew that after graduation, I would return home. But what I came back to didn't feel like home.
Moving back to New York made me feel lost
After graduation, I moved back in with my parents while I waited out my friend's lease so we could tackle living in the city together. My excitement of being back was palpable. I was finally an adult in the big city. But being back in Manhattan was just temporary.
Two months later, I moved to Brooklyn. I instantly felt lost. I was also confused as to why I felt so disconnected from a place that was supposed to be my home. I felt like a deer in headlights.
If Manhattan was my hometown, why did I feel so lost?
To be fair, I knew nothing about Brooklyn. I felt like a stranger in my own city. No one told me that my little corner in the UES was just that — a piece of an ever-expanding city that I apparently knew very little about.
Rediscovering New York as an adult showed me that home can evolve
In college, my friends and I would drive up the mountains, taking turns calling out different directions, eager to discover more of our surroundings. I have learned that there is nothing stopping me from doing the same in New York. Just because it's somewhere I'm unfamiliar with shouldn't stop me from being adventurous.
Graduating from college at 21 and being out of the closet meant I was ready to conquer my city in a way that I had daydreamed about growing up. Going to concerts weekly, attending the VMA's, and experiencing my first gay bar are just some of the experiences living in New York has already given me. But sometimes, it's about even smaller things, like going to a skate park after work or playing pool at a dive bar.
A few days ago, I clocked out of work and walked almost an hour to Bed-Stuy, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. On that walk, I found a store, a restaurant, a park, and a bar. It really is as simple as that: Walk in one direction until you feel that you have discovered enough.
No, I still can't tell you what my favorite bar is, and no, I don't know where the best sushi place is in the West Village. But give me a few more months, and I will.
It took some time living in Brooklyn to realize I was no longer that kid on the Upper East Side. My hometown is whatever I make it.
I'm adapting to my new New York
It has officially been three months since the big move back to New York. I am still a New Yorker, born and raised. I can navigate the trains like nobody's business, walk my way around any crowd, and jaywalk like it is an Olympic sport. That is what makes me a New Yorker; that is what makes New York City my hometown.
But there is still so much of this city left to explore.
So, now, whenever I feel lost in the city, I remind myself I am finding a new part of my hometown and, in turn, finding new parts of myself.