You realize that being a competitive person in a competitive market is nearly as malevolent as it is beneficial.
You get a thrill from running for a train, making it just as the doors close, then feel a comparably powerful sense of loss when you watch it pull away, seconds too late.
You live by the hour, rather than by the day or week or even month as you did before moving here.
You plan for everything, meeting a friend at a restaurant takes at least an hour of planning prior to the event to make time for transportation.
You sometimes have to walk three blocks away from home to make it to your own block safely.
You find yourself silently judging, taking into account the features, characteristics, movements, dialect, and absurdities of everyone around you. There are no such things as normalities in New York City.
You find beauty in people rather than in nature. Comparatively, you value nature more when you see it elsewhere in the world. You believe that nature is a rarity, that even the trees in Central Park seems man-made.
Your sense of losing something, your phone your keys your dignity, is always apparent.
You feel personally attacked when someone accidentally, or purposefully, nudges you due to the lack of space and the overwhelming density of bustling life.
You find yourself complaining about living in New York City yet couldn’t imagine living elsewhere.
You long to be by yourself when you are surrounded by others yet still feel alone when you walk into your apartment and none of your roommates are home.
You curse the rain, the wind, the snow, and the heat, but find that a perfect day in New York City seems more blissful than anywhere else.
You bathe freely in the pool of endless possibilities and mourn when you recognize you could never achieve them all.
You can’t help but feel as if you’re living at the center of the world.
