The Immigrant Route #5: On finding balance and purpose

We sometimes get a little lost... but there's always a new path we discover.

“The Immigrant Route” is a column featuring personal essays on self-care and love, mental health, family, careers, and personal stories. It’s meant to share insights and POV of the writer as we follow her journey as twenty-something in NYC. To gain full access to the story, consider becoming a paid subscriber here.

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Whenever I reminisce as I look through my old photo gallery, seeing versions of myself from yesterday, last week, a year ago or two, I like to think that I’ve lived multiple lives. I’ve moved around, found and worked and left several jobs, and had various people coming in and out of my life. I went to a private university in New York where I studied something I was passionate about. I worked in a full-time job that challenged me and where I learned about the industry I wanted to be in. I got myself some designer clothes, shoes with a kitten heel, trimmed my hair: I wanted to be this woman I had envisioned. A woman with style, elegance, money. A woman with a flourishing career and a beautiful apartment. And along my escapade moving to the city chasing this vision, this dream, I experienced more of the urban realities in a post-pandemic world. And I questioned if this is truly what I wanted.

The night before my flight to the Big Apple, I couldn’t sleep. I remember my life flashed before my eyes – not the life I lived like when you’re about to die, but the life you’re imagining when you go somewhere new. I had envisioned my first apartment – a typical New York small apartment in the heart of the East Village, fire escape and all, a bustling neighborhood, and jazzy bars with bitter drinks.