Blog

My second set of friends have packed their US selves and are going global. Yay for them. Sad for me. Good for all is that you (and I) can follow along on their adventures here.

I’ve known E since 1995 and T since 2002. I’ve lived with E and spent my first, formative Boston year surrounded by them, their wisdom, and their cheer. We’ve had batches of beer soaked evenings and grill-fests and concerts and resume evaluations and jobs lost and jobs won and taxi drivers take the long way and movies and dinners in and out and late nights and early mornings and new apartments and houses and weddings and cars and travel and fireworks in the ‘Ville and laughter.

We’ve gone from being babies in the big bad city to having babies (well, they have…).

After all those years and moments big and fast and small and wide, they hatched a plan to “break free of their narrow life and leap into a broad life.” “How?” rung a beat in my head over and over as I thought “Of course and What and For Real and How much and How come and Jealous and Adopt me and Please take me with you.”

It’s hard to imagine Boston without them because they’ve been a steady influence in my life. E’s the reason I had the guts to move up here not to mention I’d recently moved to a new apartment within walking distance of them. I was excited for neighborhood run-ins and quick casual visits and drinks on the patio and the occasional big night out, but now, our interactions will have to be limited to email and social media. Here’s hoping their new, broader life breaks the boundaries of the internet so I can see and hear and touch and taste and smell the world right along with them.

Here’s to outlining and chasing and catching your dreams. <3

Bon voyage!

Waking up at 4am means there are a lot more hours between breakfast and lunch.

A coworker told me a girl with short blonde hair and a cute dress and a Harvard Square Bookstore bookmark sat next to her on the bus and she tried to awkwardly and surreptitiously stare at the girl to see if it was me. Short blond hair, check. Cute dress, hopefully, usually, check. Harvard Square Bookstore bookmark, no check. If it really had been me, it would have been one from Porter Square Books.

I was on a bus though because I just came from Washington, DC this morning, I told my coworker, and somehow I was in the office by 8:30am. Not normal, I said. So tired, I said. Did you hear about the guy who figured out it was cheaper for him to live in Spain and commute daily by commercial plane to London, she said. That sounds crazy and awesome, I said. He has a gigantic house in Spain, she said.

My friend E has long told stories of her second child waking up repeatedly (and for the day) at 4am. I can barely stand one day of this. How does she survive on repeated days of it? Hopefully she goes to bed before 11pm, which was my bedtime last night.

Sister J is settling into her new home, her new life. Or, at least that’s the impression I got after only have 12 hours to spend with her.

I’ve known my college friends for 16 years. We all collided in the ‘Burg for a self-designed reunion this past weekend. We all have different memories of our four years there. Different favorite restaurants. Different buildings where we attended classes. Different dreams dreamt, lived. Different regrets. Different living spaces. The campus is different now too. Bigger, newer, sturdier, classier. And yet, we all ordered the same thing off the menu that we used to order when we were full time students.

I’ve been in the greater Boston area for 12 years now. City living pulses with neon and noise and crowds and you get used to it. It’s normal not to see the Milky Way or anything other than the brightest of stars. Knowing they’re there is enough. Seeing isn’t always believing.

Except for when an after dinner walk in NJ showcases the fireflies. Their bright butts twinkling in the smoky dusk left me breathless. I’m used to street lamps lighting the way, which, to be fair, is romantic in its practicality, but there’s something uniquely delicious in the impractical, infrequent, iridescent illumination of a firefly.

I must not go so long in between visits outside of a city’s borders.