In high school, my mom bought me a book called Humans of New York Stories by Brandon Stanton. I loved this book so much that I wrote my college essay about it. I loved how I was learning such intimate details about complete strangers. This was the first time I can remember really experiencing sonder, the realization that every human, whether that be someone I know or a passerby on the street, has a life as complex as my own, and experiences that are completely unique. This photo book of strangers taught me so much about life experiences I had never had, and might never have in my lifetime. There are pages about what it is like to be in love with someone suffering through addiction, what it is like to immigrate to a country that doesn’t want you back, watching your daughters grow up and further from you, what it is like to be homeless, divorced, a survivor of abuse, in love and fallen out of it. There was something so alluring about seeing what details the people on the pages of this book decided to share about their lives to a man with a camera. 

I love to write about the people and places that mean the most to me. I am made up of little parts of the people I love. My six year old brother Lobel brings out the child within me. I am protective because I had to make sure my brother Nikola survived high school better than I did. I am funny because my sister Juliana is, and I steal most of her jokes when she’s not around. I am obnoxiously loud because my mother and her mother are. I am a hard worker because my father had to be when he was young in order to survive. I take a piece of all the people I love and store it within me. 

Croatia is my life’s greatest blessing, it is the place my parents are from and my ancestors before them, where life isn’t easy, but still, it is wonderful. Spending parts of my childhood in New York, and other parts in Croatia, taught me the beauty of simplicity. Life in New York is materialistic, it is fast paced, it is frantic. Life in Croatia is pure, it is bliss, it is taking the little things and making something meaningful out of it. It is fresh tomatoes and watermelon from my grandpa’s garden instead of the grocery store. It is walking down to the sea instead of taking Ocean Parkway. It is simple, and it is beautiful.

Writing is a way of holding onto experiences that have passed us by and the people that we love. It is my way of preserving that which is passing by us at every fleeting moment. People change, places change, life changes at an alarming rate and writing is a way to make sense of the chaos. It is my way of challenging the cruelty of passing time by preserving what means most to me. As a writer, I want to honor the people I love and the places I come from, because they deserve to be known.