Three years ago to the day we moved into our apartment on Trescott Street, my last in a long series. The first had been my dorm on Huntington Avenue, then Darling Street in Mission Hill, then Battery Street in the North End, then Forest Hills Avenue & Perkins Street in Jamaica Plain, then Strathmore Road in Washington Square, and then Buttonwood Street in Dorchester.
I moved to Boston in 2005, a month shy of my 18th birthday to attend Massachusetts College of Art and Design. I never meant to stay for twelve years, but life marched on so steadily and strangely that all of a sudden more than a decade had passed. I met my husband the first week of school, dated for a while, then became best friends and languished in indecision for quite some time before deciding to do the damn thing. We got engaged laying in bed on Buttonwood Street, and married on the coast of Maine almost ten years after first meeting.
In between, I lived with my sister, very dear friends, and alone in a tiny studio apartment where I had to move my bed a little bit so I could open & use the oven. I studied abroad for a semester, threw parties with my sister in our two apartments that brought together friends from several states, graduated college, got my first real job, mourned the death of my mother, dated a neighbor, struggled with the noise & traffic of the city. I used my sister's license as my own for an entire summer before turning 21, I ran home in a thunderstorm on the Fourth of July after seeing people get struck by lightening, I drank green beer on St. Patrick's Day, I had a Christmas tree decorated in empty beer cans, I made Easter brunch, I cried with joy at the Pour House watching President Obama's first election results come in. I sheltered in place during the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt, to later ride bikes down a virtually empty Boylston Avenue, to eventually watch the stand off over a pitcher of beer and pizza. We thought about leaving but jobs held us here, time kept going. I spent a lot of time being angry at people wearing backpacks on the T, walked through the Common in Springtime, rode along Carson beach during sunset. I watched my closest friends get married, move away, have children. And we remained.
Last year we put the wheels in motion to jump ship. A slow moving leap, as we made sure the water was a little warmer before we plunged. And now our feet have just hit, and we're going in fast. After two years of driving 250 miles each way to our house in Maine, it won't just be our house in Maine -- it will be our home. A home that we share with generations of my family members going back to 1850. An honor that we have worked so hard to achieve.
I am open and shy of what is to come. I am leaving without any regrets, and an urgency to be away from the city. But it will always the place where I really grew up, and for that I am forever grateful. So long, see you soon.
