Update: couldn’t find an apartment, so I’m back. Finally moving (again) from the city, and I’m not too sure how to feel about it. This city is fucking ridiculous—in the best way possible. It embraced me in 2014 as a little kid with tons of ambition, naivety, and hope. I came here with a purpose (like the plethora of others who come), and it’s given and taken so much from me. New York is a city that will make you depressed, cry, scream, and every emotion that comes in between. But, just when you’re about to let go, it’ll fill you back up with this unexplainable level of confidence. This city is addictive. That feeling of being able to overcome—regardless of what might come in the way. I’ve never truly felt like that anywhere else. It’s a place that gave me a new perspective, yet grounded me to never forget where I came from. The city equipped me to be audacious in what I wanted to accomplish—it gave me the resources to build, fail, and rebuild again. This city is the reason I could work on @youngindiafdn and @naaisorg. The city gave me my first heartbreak, but it gave me lifelong friendships to get through it. This city really taught me how to dream, but always brought me back to my aukaat. I wish I could tell you how the city made me so mature, independent, and ambitious, but the most important thing this city has done for me is that it allowed me to remain the kid that came here. Truly. Very few places have this ability to take everything out of you—drain you—and still give you the strength to get through it and retain the innocence you first came with. This city has given me the mindset that—no matter how crazy life will get and how serious the situations you’re in might be—never let go of that naive kid inside you. Eight years later, I’m still that kid with lots of ambition and hope, and letting me retain that is the best thing the city has given me. Now off to biz school (if I don’t drop out) where I hope I don’t actually turn into an uncle.