There are some places that don’t seem what they are. For example where I’m from, New York, everything seems like a wonderland, a place where everything is given to you, the country where mostly everyone wants to be from just because in the movies it looks like a dream come true. In my reality, New York is just another normal country where people work for what they want. People that come to this country only once think that it’s so great just because they had so much fun, but when you are actually from New York, you know that everything is not what it seems. 

 I’m a Hispanic girl born and raised in Harlem, New York. When I was small I remember loving New York because “I lived in the best country ever” or that’s what I thought before. We had snow, we had stores everywhere, and I live in the country that everyone dreamed of. I remember my family gathering for the holidays and all the good things. We got the gifts we asked “Santa” for, and we played kids’ games with our close friends and family. The best part of being a kid in New York was the weekends, I was able to stay at my cousin’s house and sleep for as long as I wanted. 

But there was a problem. When I was younger I used to always say I wanted to be an adult already because I wanted to be able to do anything I wanted, I didn’t know how happy I was at that time and now I realize that the best moments in this country was when I really didn’t understand anything and all I had to worry about was playing. 

 As I got older many things started getting different. The family stopped getting together as before, and I realized that as time was passing by so quickly in a blink of an eye my expectations of the city changed. I no longer love New York as I did before. It is where I’m from but everything seems so distinct now that I’m older. I have to work hard for something I don’t even really want. Here, you live a life that is not yours but in fact others. That happiness you had when you were young gets crunched down because now you get judged for being happy and doing what you like. You are now a slave of work and of trying to make everything look perfect when it really isn’t. This is my reality in the city I’m from.

When you grow up living in a place like this one people from other countries think that you’re wealthy and living the best life, but what they don’t realize is that here there are more expenses than any other thing. Here we see people living in the streets with their kids because they can’t afford to pay rent and buy food at the same time. We see people not getting jobs because they look a certain way. This is not a lifestyle that many can support. Just because in the movies everything seems so wonderful doesn’t mean that every part of New York is like that. Where I’m from we see the reality of this city. “Although I never had the sense that we were poor, I now realize that we must have at certain times anyway, come pretty close to it.” This was something said by Megan Daum in her story My Misspent Youth. I think that everyone that has lived in New York has come to a point where they feel poor or they were really close to being poor. I don’t consider myself to be poor because I have a house and I’ve seen people living worse than me but I don’t consider myself wealthy either because at times we couldn’t get the things we needed. 

Sometimes living here makes me wonder, Do I really want to make a life in New York? Am I safe in these streets? Would I be capable of surviving here? These are all questions I wonder about daily because every time I watch the news the more I think about moving out because everything gets worse every day. The streets here are so unsafe they sometimes try to hide that in the News, but I see everything and I notice how women walk uncomfortable because they’re afraid of being unwantedly touched on the streets by a man. I have seen how men always tried to degrade a female without even knowing how hard they work. And I’ve also seen how people are mistreated just because they are from a certain place or because they have an accent when they speak. Nothing is done so that these things could be stopped in New York, the only cases that are solved are the ones that come to light, but what about the others that are hidden from the world? Would something be done to help those people? Or do we have to keep protesting to get nothing in exchange? These are the things that scare me the most about New York, being part of a city that just hurt us instead of helping us.

I’ve been to other places and I see how everyone is so happy and how everyone tries to help each other out and I just sometimes wished I had that in New York. I feel like here even though you are judged for what you do, nobody is really there for you. You are literally on your own. People could see you need help and they’ll just walk right past you and pretend like they didn’t see anything. This is a city that is divided into sections of race and ethnicity and the only people that unite are the ones that need help, the others just sit and judge. 

The people that are not from this country think this is the City that doesn’t sleep and that’s exactly what it is, just as the city doesn’t sleep people don’t sleep. What I mean by this is that in New York people have to work many hours to achieve their goals and to be economically stable. Many people that live here might not be able to sleep well because they have to work, go to school, and do chores when they get home. This means that in New York people barely have a personal life and time to enjoy themselves. This life is not what people enjoy. 

“I hurt the people I cared about and insulted those I did not. I cut myself off from the one person who was closer to me than any other. I cried until I was not even aware when I was crying and when I was not, cried in elevators and in taxis and in Chinese laundries, and when I went to the doctor he said only that I seemed to be depressed, and should see a “specialist”.” This was something said by Joan Didion in her story Goodbye to all that. I felt that what Didion said connected with me and with other New Yorkers because here you don’t realize when you’re doing something right or wrong. When something seems normal to you, other people feel a certain way about it. And as you do your own thing the fewer people come around you. I guess that the more independent you become the harder it gets. Here you don’t have time to realize how you really feel because you always have something to do and if you try to look for help they would really tell you that you’re depressed, when in reality what you have to do is take a break from everything and take some time for yourself. 

Some New Yorkers might say that what I’m saying here is not true, that this city is beautiful and that they actually open doors for many people. They might think that being part of New York is actually a benefit. But this is my perspective of the city. I feel that just as it opens doors for many it closes the doors for others. New York is a city that benefits the rich and harms the poor in my opinion. This is what I see and this is what I’ll say, I don’t speak on behalf of anyone but myself. Everyone has their own opinion about New York. 

There are some people here like me that are tired of constantly repeating the same things daily. Instead of seeing New York as a beautiful story, I see it as those movies that constantly repeat themself until you notice that you’re not doing the right thing, and right now I’m still at the part where I wake up and I’m still doing the same routine again and again and I’m getting tired of it. Here I have no social life because I’m constantly thinking about school and having my work done so I’ve put myself at a point where I decline my friend’s invitations to dinner or to go out and walk because I have class the next day or because I have some work due soon. My rule is that I have to focus on just one thing, so if I’m going to be in school I need to just focus on school and not other social events. I know this might be seen as a problem to others and that I need to look for help but the thing is that this is the way my brain works. I’m always thinking about the future when I’m really in the present. I’m always thinking about what if this doesn’t come out right, what if I fail in life, and about many other things that just drive me crazy. 

Okay, yes I know I’ve just been talking about all the negative things about New York, yes the city has some beauty just as it has some ugliness, but the thing is that all I’ve been able to see since I grew a bit older is the badness this place has. I don’t work at the moment because as I said before, I need to focus on school to become successful. But seeing my mother struggle since I was little to try and give me the best life, I started wondering about my future. When it’s time for me to move out and live on my own, am I going to struggle? How am I going to keep up with paying bills and going to school at the same time? What if I have kids, am I going to be able to take care of them living in a country as expensive as New York? Right now I don’t have an answer to all these questions but what I can do is try to fix these discomforts I have before I get older and try to find a way of realizing what the solution to the problem is. 

I’m not really sure if this is just part of me growing up. I’m not really sure if it’s always going to be this way. I’m not really sure if it’s even New York the problem, right now it seems like it is. I’m only eighteen trying to find myself in a country I feel like I don’t belong in, the trends, the hard work, you’re on your own here and I don’t think that works for me. I try my best to get involved in New York like activities sometimes, but when I do them it’s not something that really makes me happy. I’m just trying to be like others here and when I try to be like others I’m not really where I belong. I need to find a place where I fit in, where I can be myself but most of all where I can be happy. But right now I’m living in Harlem, New York and I don’t feel at home.