I Just Came to Say, "Goodbye, Love"

I am hoping through the dark clouds, light shall break and bring a bright sky...

As the sun sets behind the Flatiron, signalling the end of a late summer/early fall day, so, too must my time in New York come to an end. 

I am writing this in the UK, back at my parents house in Bournemouth. 

I cried all the way home.

Leaving New York is the hardest thing I have ever done. 

Maybe I should be grateful that that is the hardest thing I have ever done, I don't know. It didn't make it any less painful. It hurt more than leaving home to go to uni.  It hurt more, and gave me more anxiety than you get when you're a little kid and you've gone and lost your parents in a big crowd.  It hurt more than when my ex-boyfriend told me he didn't love me anymore, despite all I'd given to him.

It hurt more than anything, because I've left a part of me behind there. This year, I came to New York confused, about life, about love.  About what I wanted, about who I was. 

New York so easily, so effortlessly showed me what I want, what I need in order to survive, in order to feel more alive than I've ever felt. 

I see my future path so clearly.  My old life and my old concerns feel so small, so insignificant.  The things I have done in this city, the amazing year I've had, in the most amazing place with all the amazing people I have met have produced in me a new sense of self.  I now walk with a self-assured strut, no longer looking down at the ground.  I feel like nothing can stop me.

And even though a part of me got left behind in New York, it's ok.

Because I'll be back there to get it.  And then I'll never leave.

You'll see.