A place is a sum of many parts, one of them being what we make of it. So, while New York is usually seen as bright, busy, loud, indifferent, bustling, energetic, aspirational, and even indescribable, my feelings were far from Frank Sinatra’s emotions in ‘New York, New York’. Perhaps, not everything is meant to be experienced in the same way by everyone. To me, the New York I experienced was a product of fallen expectations, a dark and anxious time in my personal life, unyielding winter winds, and painful-but-necessary growth that can only come from stepping out of one’s comfort zone.

I lack the words I need to string together into coherent passages, to describe what I felt in my seven days in what most people call ‘the city with everything’. Therefore, here’s my brief affair with a beige Big Apple, minus the glitz and glamour – through the eyes of a lost solo traveller seeking something she would only find once she left for the country she calls home.

I hope to return to New York again – one that has launched many dreams and broken many hearts. Perhaps in sunnier times, or when I’m armed with the confidence to take on a city as fast-paced, unyielding, and awe-striking. I mean, I do have a ten-year visa, so I might as well make use of it, no?