These past few weeks, and even past few months have been tumultuous to say the least. I moved to Boston four years ago to go to school with the idea that I needed a change and wanted to get away from my life from high school and start anew. I definitely did start anew, and I know that I am a completely different person from the one who first arrived in Boston.
I have now found myself as a completely different person, with a new niche in Boston and not very much of one back home since I have been away for so long. Since graduation in May, I have been faced with the decision of what to do next. Should I stay in Boston where I know the city very well, know some people, and am growing to really like? Or should I leave the people and place that I know to return home where my family is? This decision has been weighing on me pretty much since I started my senior year this fall.
As it turned out, my senior year was great. I lived off campus with all of my close friends that I had known from sophomore year. We tore it up and really made the best of our last year in college. The apartment we lived in turned out to be a place that we all lived in for the longest since moving away from home to college. We even got a cat that we all grew to love and adore. Boston really started to feel like home, and I found a lot of comfort in the neighborhood that I lived in. I recognized people in the area, I spent a lot of time in the nearby park and I had a lot of friends in very close proximity. It was clear to me after my first semester that I wanted to stick around in Boston for as long as I could.
My connection and attachment to Boston increased when I met someone in one of my classes. I was taking Anthropology Food and Culture and we had to go on trips to different parts of Boston to learn about food and culture around Boston. It was on the trip to Chinatown that I met him as we were assigned to work in a group. We got along immediately and ended up seeing each other nearly every day and have continued to see each other and be together throughout this summer. Needless to say, he was another important reason for my attachment to Boston.
Slowly throughout the summer people began to move out of Boston to go on to bigger and better things. Some moved home, some went abroad and some moved to go away to grad school. The Boston I knew was slowly crumbling in my hands. I felt confident and committed to making it my home. I told myself that I would find a job and I would move into an apartment and meet a whole new set up people and, in a way, re-integrate myself into the city.
I hit a series of road bumps, that in the bigger picture, are probably just the normal occurences of life after graduation. I found a temp job, but it was not something that challenged me mentally, distracted me, or even allowed me to have any co-workers. I was turned down for a few jobs that I got really excited about having despite not really knowing what I ultimately wanted to do professionally. My close friends began to move away, either out of the city or further away from the neighborhood. My social network in Boston was disentegrating and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay upbeat and positive about commiting to stay living in Boston. I kept wondering if I was making the right decision. It was becoming increasingly clear that my network of people I could count on and have as support was not quite as reliable as I would have hoped.
After a crazy and emotional day filled with lots of discussion with many different people, I believe I have ultimately decided to go back home. My best friend in the world is returning home for a couple of months and I know that it is important that we spend this time together since we have not had a lot of chances to live in the same place since we both went away to school. I have been too stressed out trying to decide what I want to do with myself professionally and I think I need some time to take a step back and think and do something else for a while.
I do believe this is one of the hardest or at least saddest decisions I have had to make for as long as I can remember. I am leaving behind a life that I have had for four years for an unknown amount of time. I am leaving behind people that I have grown extremely close to and it is heartbreaking to me to be leaving them to move back across the country. The thought of not having some of these people in my life or not being a part of their life (for the time being or longer) is devastating to me. The most important thing to me in the world are the people in my life.
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