Happy Anniversary to Me... and My City

What a cool three years it's been.

There was the multitude of jobs, evolving from ill-fitting to my dream job. All the spaces in which I've lived... beautiful, light-filled apartments. First my gorgeous, tall-ceilinged place in the North End, which was so noisy I tried to avoid staying there on the weekends, but had a view from the roof that couldn't be topped; then my slum-ish South End apartment which, with a weekend's help from my parents, was turned into a workable floor plan and eventually a wonderful apartment; and now my apartment here in Central Square above the Cellar, which needed only to be made our own.

Some friends have moved on, but most are still here, scattered around the perimeter of the city and never more than a T ride away. Many of them have changed in huge ways since I knew them; mostly I think of them as always staying the same, forever.

Almost exactly one year into my tenure here in Boston - 2 years ago - I convinced myself that this would not be the chapter in which I would meet anyone of any consequence. Almost immediately after that mental decision, I met the sweetest boy the city could dream up. He describes the feeling similarly: with Legos. "You look and look for this one little piece that you want, and you waste all this time going through all the Legos looking for it, and then finally you give up and just start working on something else. The minute you do, that perfect piece appears out of nowhere." I'm keeping this piece in my pocket.

Thanks for experiencing my nostalgia with me. Place gets into you if you spend even the smallest amount of time in it; it becomes your documented history, your story, and as good as the genes that direct who you are.