When I arrived, the air smelled different—not better or worse, just unfamiliar. The first thing I noticed was the silence within the crowd—not absolute silence, but the absence of familiar voices, the feeling of being a ghost among the living. Everything here worked differently. The faces were unknown, the streets followed routes I didn’t understand, and the days passed without anyone saying my name. There was no story tying me to this place, no echo of my past within its walls. Work wasn’t any better. It was like a well-oiled machine where I was the piece that didn’t fit. They spoke to me without looking and gave instructions without explaining. Just the basics, just enough. A mechanical greeting, a curt direction, a glance that barely landed on me before shifting back to a screen, a phone, something more important. I wondered if my presence would ever be more than a shadow in the corner of their routines. The nights were the worst enemy. Loneliness became louder when the sun went dow...
I never imagined that sadness could weigh this much. The excitement I carried when I left home could crumble so quickly, leaving me empty-handed and with a shattered heart. When I arrived, I thought I would find opportunities waiting for me, that this new beginning would be the first step toward everything I had dreamed of. But what I saw was a broken place, as worn down as the hope I was still trying to hold on to. The days have been long, the nights endless. I roam, passing faces that don’t meet my eyes, and doors that close before I can even knock. Hunger is bearable, but loneliness is not. There’s a coldness that doesn’t come from the weather but from the certainty that no one here is waiting for me, that no one speaks my name with warmth, that no one asks how I am. I feel like a ship lost at sea, battered by a storm that never ends. I have tried to be strong, I swear. I have told myself, over and over again, that every effort is worth it, that luck will change, that I didn’t come ...