SUBURBAN SAINT.

Living in New York City has truly taught me so much about myself.

How getting dressed makes me smile.

How walking with nothing in my hands makes me nervous.

How much I hate the 6 train.

How much a person can change due to their environment.

The list goes on,

but the craziest part is that I’ve only been here for about a year and a half now.

But just like anyone who migrates from their hometown, you’re bound to change a little.

Some more drastically than others.

Yikes.

But no.

It’s not just my hair that changed.

It’s my entire aesthetic.

Back home, I dressed fine.

Clean.

Acceptable.

Safe enough to move through a room without disruption. Nothing technically wrong.

But there was a ceiling.

A quiet limit to how far I would push myself before it felt like I was “doing too much.”

Here though,

too much is always the baseline.

So,

My trousers got even wider.

My layering became more intentional.

My accessories stayed on.

I stopped dressing to avoid commentary.

I started dressing to feel aligned.

Shortly after, my grooming shifted!

I grew my hair out.

I took care of my skin with intention.

I stopped aiming for manageable and started aiming for deliberate.

Then my body changed.

I started going to the gym consistently.

Part of that was the city’s pace I think, but also the people around me.

My friends here want what I want.

They care about growth.

They care about presentation.

They care about ambition.

They care about building something.

The conversations are different.

Back home, comfort was enough. Stability was enough. Familiarity was enough.

Here, stagnation feels loud.

When your circle is evolving, you evolve.

When your friends are disciplined, you feel it.

When the people around you are refining themselves in real time, you either participate or you fall behind.

Now that I think about it,

I also used to be pretty picky.

here though,

even my diet has shifted.

Trying to fathom where this all comes from I return to the same words from my first year seminar professor; "Performance matters here. Energy matters. You cannot keep up mentally or physically without recalibrating."

My music taste changed a bunch too.

Not as surprising to me as the rest of changes but the playlists I clung to in Virginia Beach feel nostalgic now.

Safe.

Predictable.

Here, I gravitated toward sounds that match the city. Faster. Layered. Unapologetic. Music that feels like movement instead of memory.

It’s like my tolerance expanded.

Or maybe I just stopped shrinking.

Because the truth is, I would not have made any of these changes back home.

Not because I didn’t want to.

Because I didn’t feel the pressure. Or the inspiration.

When everyone around you is living at the same pace, you rarely question it. But when you’re surrounded by people chasing more, building more, refining more, you start auditing yourself.

So yes,

To the Suburban Saint that Virginia Beach made me,

Thank you.

I've learned, I've grown, and I'm good.

And No!

New York didn’t just change my wardrobe.

It changed my standards.

For my body.

For my time.

For my circle.

For my life.

Teenage me imagined this version of existence. Dressing how I want. Looking how I want. Moving through rooms where reinvention is normal.

Back home, I was comfortable.

Here, I am intentional.

And intention compounds.

The city didn’t magically improve me.

It raised the bar.

And I decided to meet it.

So trust me now more than ever,

my taste level is a lot more critical.