Sitting Next to It

A solo weekend in Boston, a quiet park, and the comfort of being a stranger

I spontaneously booked a trip to Boston during one of the busiest weeks of the semester.

It's October 4, and lock-in season at Fordham is in full swing. We're five weeks into the semester, and I have two midterms this week. On top of a course overload, I'm working on the side and serving as president of our Filipino American club. It's the worthwhile kind of busy, but it's busy all the same. And somewhere in the background, my post-grad life keeps whispering, asking when I'm going to start taking her seriously.

I have been. Or at least, I've been trying. Applying to law school is its own long journey, and figuring out what comes after this whirlwind of college has been overwhelming. Time is ticking. My years at Fordham, and maybe in New York, are almost up, and change has never come easily to me.

Boston was my attempt to glimpse a life outside the one I'm used to. There was a time when New York wasn't my default, and after graduation, it might not be again. That's been hard to accept. The people, places, routines, and memories I hold closest might, before long, no longer be here for me to savor.

For this trip, I deleted my social media. The goal was simple: experience a new city alone, with no distractions, and learn to be more present. Noise creeps into daily life so easily that it starts to feel normal. We wake up and scroll Instagram. Scroll after scroll, we fill our heads with more. But if we're always chasing easy dopamine, when do we ever get to celebrate the daily and the mundane?

This morning, I fell right back into it. I woke up and scrolled, and thirty minutes were gone before my day had even started. So before leaving my apartment, I deleted everything again.

Then I went to Beacon Hill and stepped into one of the prettiest bookstores in the world. Around me, couples, families, and solo travelers stood in awe of the architecture and the carefully curated shelves. On Acorn Street, the most photographed street in the U.S., a newlywed couple posed for their photographer, a mother helped her toddler daughter walk, and tourists lined up their shots. I worked up the courage to ask strangers to take my photo and got a few solo shots of my own. Then I wandered the cobblestone streets with "Boston" by Augustana playing, admiring house after house.

Eventually I ended up at Tatte, the famous Boston bakery, with a pastry and an iced pistachio latte. I ate in silence, or mostly in silence, while overhearing a mother and daughter talk about how the daughter could respectfully cut off her situationship. I kept glancing out the window at the beautiful historic buildings.

Because I was present, I could finally think. When we consume too much, there's no room left to think deeply. By sitting with my own silence, I reached the thoughts that had been quietly consuming me all week, and I realized why I'd been so cranky lately: I was homesick.

So instead of avoiding my sadness, I walked to the park and sat next to it. I watched the families and couples around me and noticed that I was alone. I was happy for them, but I couldn't help feeling a little jealous. And at the same time, there was a beautiful sunset in front of me and music in my ears.

It hit me that I was sitting in a beautiful park in a beautiful city, and that I had come from another beautiful city. I'm twenty, a fourth-year college student in New York, and I traveled alone to Boston on a random weekend. That still baffles me. To some, it might sound ordinary. To me, a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines, it isn't.

It's been years since I moved to the U.S., but my immigrant mindset still shapes everything about me. It's why I work tirelessly for what I want. It's why I don't mind sleepless nights if they get me the result I'm after. It's why a trip like this means so much.

I've sacrificed a lot to get here, but the biggest sacrifice has been familiar companionship. If you're lucky, you find people to count on wherever you go, and I've found my share of community in New York, in friends and more. Still, the most important people in my life are far away. My mom, my siblings, and my dog Tiffany are on the other side of the country. My dad, my grandparents, and most of my relatives are on the other side of the world.

The thought that hurts most is this: in so many ways, I'm going through life without them. The people who mean the most to me don't get to watch me grow into who I'm becoming.

And yet, I still consider myself incredibly lucky. That's the crux of being an immigrant. You give up growing alongside the people you love so that you can grow, mostly, on your own.

Walking around Boston, I realized that nobody here knows my name. That's scary. It's also kind of freeing. I get to exist exactly as I am now. No one has preconceived notions of who I am, so I'm free to show up however I choose, without pressure to act a certain way. Whether I'm in Boston or New York, that feeling follows me everywhere, and it lets me grow fully. The ambition and energy of a big city push me to chase my dreams relentlessly.

Then another thought hit me. I'm probably not the only one here feeling this way. So many of the people walking past me came from somewhere else too: a small town, another state, another country. Each of them is trying to figure out who they are in a place that doesn't know them yet. That's what big cities do. They gather people who are a little lost and give them room to start over. There's something comforting about that. Even when I feel alone, I'm alone alongside thousands of others doing the same thing, and every one of us gets the chance to reinvent ourselves.

There's no better time to live in a big city than your early twenties. It forces you to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and to grow aggressively. In Manhattan at 7 a.m., the air smells like coffee, and everywhere you look, people in suits are already on their way somewhere. In Boston, students working everywhere inspire you to become a more curious person. Cities like these make you want to be more. That growth may cost you familiar companionship, but the payoff is endless.

Knowing that, I find a little more comfort in being alone. Alone with my thoughts. Alone in a new city. At the start of this trip, I tried to drown my loneliness in cheap dopamine. But once I sat with my thoughts and let them wander without letting them consume me, I understood that some feelings are meant to be felt so we can move forward.

I feel better now. I'm going to keep exploring Boston, more grounded than ever. I'm less sad about what isn't in front of me, whether it's behind me or ahead, and I'm ready to take on the present.