Wednesday, September 4, 2019// The Statement
6B
I
fall in love three times a day. Perhaps
it’s because I’m a cancer sun and a
cancer moon; perhaps it’s because I’m
a writer. Perhaps it’s because I exclusively
seek out experiences that make my heart
race (in a good way). But with everything
I’ve fallen blindly head over heels for in 21
years –– boys in glasses, coffee shops that
sell newspapers, banana muffins, redheaded
best friends, novels dripping in rich prose
(set in Paris), I’ve never quite made the list
of the places, ideas and people my heart
aches for. Perhaps, this is because I am a
member of a generation that monitors self-
worth based on our social media accounts.
Or perhaps it is because I put pressure on
myself that steals my ability to triumph in
who I am.
Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to
move to New York City. New York’s biggest
delight for me lies in its impassioned vigor
for live theatre. Working on Broadway in
the city of my eight-year-old daydreams this
summer didn’t live up to the expectations
I always held tight in the back of my mind.
Simultaneously, the experience of living
in the middle of all I’ve hoped for pushed
me to fall in love yet again, not with the
city, but myself. I recognized the reality of
New York beneath the sparkle. It’s a place
not of idealism and magic but nitty, gritty
life — real life. Being out of the bubble of
my childhood pushed me to look at what
New York truly is: a bubbly, wide awake,
disgusting paradise. The things that make
New York ugly make New York real, and
the things that make New York real make
it beautiful. After 21 years of self-doubt over
insignificant flaws — pinching extra skin on
my sides, scrutinizing every word I put on a
page, agonizing over relationships — I can
exhale a bit. I am young, I am in the middle
of it all and the very things that make me real
are the things that make me beautiful.
BY ELI RALLO,
SMTD SENIOR
A
fter saying goodbye to my family
and schlepping my two heavy
suitcases onto the New York-
bound train, the first thing I did was pull
up Instagram on my phone. On my story,
I posted a picture of the train I had just
boarded with the caption “NYC bound for
the summer! If you’re in the city and wanna
be my friend and go on adventures hmu!”.
Two hours passed and only three people
responded: my girlfriend, 500 miles away
and another friend, 2,700 miles away, both
to wish me luck.
The first day of my internship a few
days later I hoped to make friends with
some of the other interns, and I succeeded
with one or two out of 40. I reached out
to several people who I knew would be
in the city and built up a decent network,
but there were still many days I didn’t
have anyone to hang out with and still had
things I wanted to do. So, I decided to do
them by myself. My summer love story is
to solitude and these photos dive deep into
the city that I loved to explore by myself.
BY DANYEL
THARAKAN,
ENGINEERING
SENIOR
A statement
from the
photographer: