New York feels stifling sometimes, especially after winter. I've grown to appreciate its energy but also feel its weight. Two hours minimum to escape the concrete and noise—this city both nurtures and traps you.

My Brooklyn apartment feels like home, but I often get caught in the city's gravitational pull, forgetting the world beyond the five boroughs—places where stars outshine streetlights and silence isn't something you search for.

Last month, I visited family in Columbus and Bloomington, Indiana. Driving from Indianapolis, I watched skyscrapers surrender to farmland, then to rolling hills crowned with hardwood forests. The landscape opened up like a deep breath.

We explored T.C. Steele's studio, tucked against the edge of Brown County State Park. Steele, an American impressionist who worked alongside Monet and Homer, captured these same hills a century ago. Outside his windows, April had painted the forest floor with trillium.

Standing on that hillside, I imagined an alternate self who chose IU instead of BU. They might own a craftsman bungalow with a garden. Perhaps they teach at the university or runs a small business where he knows customers by name. Their life moves at a different rhythm.

Would that version of me be happier? More fulfilled? It's impossible to know. As Frost suggested in "The Road Not Taken," we craft narratives after choosing our paths, convincing ourselves which one "has made all the difference" - stories we tell ourselves afterward.

Back in New York now, I navigate crowded sidewalks with renewed purpose. The paths we take shape us in unexpected ways. My Indiana self would lack certain bruises, but also gain certain strengths and perspectives. Each version walks a road with its own beauty and difficulty.

Sometimes escaping your normal life isn't about leaving permanently—it's about gaining enough distance to see its true dimensions, then returning with clearer eyes.