Dear Diary:

A few years ago, I came to New York from a small town in New Hampshire. Within days, I was drowning in anxiety and loneliness. Everything felt impossibly big, and I, impossibly small.

After months of growing despair, I stumbled across the Strand. I have always found sanctuary in books, and discovering the store put me over the moon.

With nobody to share my excitement with, I ended up emailing my high school English teacher, a native of Harlem. In retrospect, I don’t know what I was looking for in the exchange: comfort? affirmation? familiarity?

Whatever it was, he seemed to know, even if I didn’t. In his reply, he wrote: “The city is full of wonder, mystery, surprise, inspiration, a good amount of crazy and some loneliness. (The loneliness is where you find your soul.)”

As it turned out, he was right. As the years passed, I learned not to rush to fill empty spaces, and instead to listen to the silence. I learned that home can exist inside myself. By slowing down to explore the loneliness, I also found all the other things my teacher had promised: beauty, strangeness and, yes, plenty of crazy.

I’d like to think that somewhere in there, I found my soul.