I used to tell people the idea of moving to New York had never occurred to me before that miserable winter in Boston, and it was a lie I believed for a long time. After college, a solid number of my friends decamped from Philadelphia to move to New York, which baffled me. I found NYC to be too confusing and big; I had difficulty remembering if it was the avenues or streets that ran north to south. I wanted to stay in Philadelphia, where I had gone to college, or eventually move back home to Tennessee. Boston, a hail-Mary pass for post-grad satisfaction, felt crazy enough. Never in my post-college daydreams did New York seem like a possibility.

But then, nearly a year after moving here, on a gray March day, walking through the lingering snow slush, I suddenly remembered, apropos of nothing, that I had always wanted to move here. My mother, in an attempt to get me out of the house and out of her hair during a slow summer, had enrolled me in a musical theater camp. Even though the camp was in Chatanooga, it began a one-sided romance with New York that lasted until I realized I absolutely couldn’t sing (at around age 14). Because once I knew I loved Broadway musicals, that meant I loved Broadway, which meant I wanted to be on Broadway. Thanks to Rent, I even thought I’d do well crashing as an artist in a condemned warehouse. I wrote songs about my big-city dreams — songs that (bless them) only live in my memory. Then I grew up, and the New York of my adolescent ideals faded until it never felt real in the first place. Nowhere is that magical.

Except, for twentysomething me, it is. There aren’t choreographed dance numbers, or meet-cutes with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, but after living here for three years, New York still feels like a miracle. It’s like one day I realized I could actually slip through the Looking Glass.

When I first arrived, everything felt so much more alive than anywhere else I’d lived before: riding the subway, or jostling through crowds at Union Square. Even being inside took on new meaning. I would be at home— which, really, could have been an apartment anywhere — and I would think, with a shock: New York City is outside! I reveled in those surprising moments of quiet, like watching the yellow cabs barreling up Lexington Avenue at 1 a.m., and it felt like I had found a secret that only New York and I knew.

Everything that made my heart swell into my throat was totally banal: foliage in Central Park, or dollar pizza slices when I was broke. I still crane to see the Statue of Liberty whenever the B train goes over the bridge into Brooklyn. I stop every time I can see the Empire State Building, thinking about people who have traveled from around the world to visit the top, and I just get to see it as I’m making my way out of Duane Reade with a Diet Coke and new tube of toothpaste.

One day, leaving a street fair on the Lower East Side, I found a canvas pouch with block letters that read “New York Is My Boyfriend.” I knew I had to buy it immediately. I love showing it to people — it’s almost a litmus test when I meet new friends — true New Yorkers just get it. But the real question I have now is this: Is New York my husband? Am I committed to this city for life?

It was a crush that drew me to New York. I moved not so much because I wanted to be in this city, but because I needed to leave the bad relationship I was having with Boston. If you asked me then, I would have said NYC would be home for the next two or three years, five max. Now, I’m three years in, and the idea of leaving in two years makes me feel queasy. I can’t imagine being satisfied — the city is too big, and there’s still so much to do.

Like any romantically involved couple, New York City and I have a few things to work on. At the height of the summer — with the crazy heat and terrible smells — I take every chance to escape for a weekend. But when my plane lands on the return flight, my stomach does flips when I see the skyline. I am home, reunited with my one true love.