There's a rooftop in DUMBO where my friends and I gather, and on Thursday we were all up there again, the Manhattan Bridge framing us, the skyline doing its showing-off thing it does at golden hour.
When I moved here at 21, I thought making friends as an adult would be impossible. And honestly the first year it kind of was. I was lonely in a way I'd never been in Ahmedabad, where I was never more than a courtyard away from someone who loved me.
But slowly, the way it happens here, I collected people. Priya from a styling job who became my person. Marcus from a building elevator who became my brother. Lin, who I met crying on the L train and who is now the first person I call.
This is what they mean by found family. Not the people you're born to, but the people you assemble, one chance encounter at a time, until suddenly you have a table full of folks who'll show up to a DUMBO rooftop with cheap wine and chaat and love.
We sat up there as the sun went down over the water. Marcus brought samosas from his neighborhood place. Priya made everyone laugh until our stomachs hurt. Lin and I had our usual quiet corner conversation about everything and nothing.
I thought about how in India, family is the thing you're given, the structure you grow inside. And here I had to build my own from scratch, with people from everywhere, and it works. It's a different kind of family but it's no less real.
The found family I have in this city is the thing I'm most proud of. More than any job. More than any byline. I came here alone and I am no longer alone, and that took years and luck and a lot of saying yes to people.
Below us the bridge lit up and the trains rumbled across it, full of strangers who might one day become someone's person.
You don't find your people. You build them, slowly, on rooftops.
Love,