Alien Teen Girl Blog :/

As someone who fell madly in love with NYC as a little girl, my newfound feelings for the city now make me feel rather blue. Like most people, I saw the city as a place of opportunity, a place where you could change your life. I craved a change and decided I was going to go to college there. It took me two weeks before I moved back home and dropped out— for many deeply personal reasons, but overall because it just didn’t feel right.

When I arrived, instead of being greeted with opportunity, new people, and excitement for my new life, I was met with millions of people stacked on top of each other in small rooms with all their belongings packed tightly away. I was met with people with mean faces pushing past me in the subway to get on with their busy days, and harassment from creepy men in alleyways. The city is a beautiful, unique sight of mismatched buildings all together, but it couldn’t help but make me feel like I was in some dystopian movie.

The reason people go to the city is that they want connectedness. They want to find people like them. They want to live freely without the judgment of their small towns in the middle of nowhere. They want to turn their passions into a job, where they can not only survive the brutal 9-to-5, but also do something they love without living in poverty. But the city lacks something I think all people need—space to grow. People are trapped in small apartments without a yard, a field to run in, or the ability to see the stars. It breaks my heart. Without being connected to nature, we are losing a part of our humanity. The fact that humans bring themselves to these overcrowded cities, where no human should have to live, just to try to find community, is truly a physical representation of our society failing us. People should be able to find that sense of belonging everywhere. My real question is, why can’t we?

Money. It’s always the answer when we ask why society is failing us. Those in power keep industries centralized in big cities because there’s profit to be made. They use this as an excuse to force the everyday person to overpay for tiny, overpriced rooms. Yet, with the growing influence of the internet and social media, the “everyday” person has the power to change these industries right now. We can build global communities, form meaningful connections, and speak out against the systems that need to change. We can demand flexible, location-independent jobs. It all starts with a group—there is strength in numbers. If we stand together, if we refuse to let them take advantage of us, we can fight back and reclaim the idea of humanity in nature.

I guess I don’t hate the city. I actually think it’s an amazing place. But I hate the idealization of something that doesn’t allow people to truly live. I hate how we all give the city credit for connectedness. I hope that one day cities will step back and let nature sneak its way back into people’s hearts. I hope that you don’t have to live in one place for your passions to grow. And I hope that money doesn’t trample over humanity.