Saying Goodbye To Boston: Still Boston Strong

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As you’ve read, by the dog days of summer I was pretty set on moving. And as you can imagine, there are some substantially difficult hurdles when wanting to completely uproot your life; paramount among them is getting a job. Duh. But we’ll get to that mishegas during your regularly scheduled Friday morning programming.

I want to address some points that came from the first two SGTB blogs. There were several commenters who seem to be on their way to moving to Boston or just moved to Boston. Or maybe you one day are interested in coming here, or you want to move from your city and you just put a big cross through Boston on your list. It certainly seems that I’ve caused some apprehension about Boston aka Beantown aka The Hub, at least mildly. And that wasn’t my intention at all.

Yes, Boston has its problems, though what city doesn’t? The train systems shut down at 12:30 a.m., so it’s all Ubers when you’re leaving the bars. Happy hour is banned. The street systems were designed for horse and buggy so it’s a lot of crazy city planning. It’s cold and snowy and the weather is generally dog shit for like eight months out of the year. But all that petty stuff is significantly dwarfed by its virtues.

Boston is an amazing city. It has charm. It’s got character seeping from its pores. Massachusetts literally invented America, and the history that the city of Boston has is palpable. It is packed with an extremely prideful group of citizens. The food scene is on point, and even though bottomless brunch doesn’t exist, the brunch game is bonkers. It’s a tough city to ever be bored in; there are endless activities for any personality. I’ve lived here for nearly 26 years and there are still so many adventures I’ve yet to embark on in Boston, such as a threesome with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick Gisele.

It’s also such a diverse place to live. There’s a neighborhood for every type of person. You can be bougie in Back Bay. You can be a millennial in Southie. You can try and adult it up in the South End. You can be a hipster in Cambridge. You can try your hand at trying to survive gang violence in Mattapan. See? Neighborhoods for any personality.

I could go on and on and on about how dope Boston can be and why it’s a fantastic place to live. Gun to head, I’m pretty sure one day I’ll wind up trying to raise a family in the Boston ‘burbs. And, like a Peter North load, leaving the place I’ve called home for almost 26 years is going to be immensely difficult to swallow. But the reasons why I feel like I need to leave right now probably aren’t the reasons why you should be scared to move here.

I don’t want to sound like a schmuck (even though I am), but I have a lot of friends. I went to high school; I have friends from that institution. I went to college; I have friends from that institution. I went to camp; I still have many friends from that institution. And hey! All of this shit went down in and around the Boston area. So many of those people from those institutions – at some point – were all in Boston. As you can imagine, I got spread thin. Three squads and I was sort of part of all of them. But you have to prioritize. I chose my college friends; they were more like-minded. Same senses of humor. You get the idea. So they had first priority on the waiver wire. When that group text would come in, they’d be my first round pick. And so when all of those college friends left Boston, I wasn’t exactly on the minds of some of those people from my other friend groups. Those group texts you’re all a part of? Mine were all taking place in another city, and I just wanted to be with them. Also, again, not to tease #content, but there were some other motivations to move, which of course I’ll get to.

If (when) you move to Boston, I doubt you’ll spread yourself thin like me. You’ll meet people through work, or through some extracurricular activity like a rec league or volunteering or sexaholics anonymous class, and that’ll be your crew. It’s not like I don’t have friends in Boston; I just feel like I’m missing out on the mid-twenties experience that I want. Leaving Boston for an adventure just made sense to me. I really don’t want you to think I was in a rut and I’m just running away from it. That’s not one hundred percent accurate.

As for some clarifications to last week’s SGTB: somebody mentioned that by moving back home I’m perpetuating the millennial stereotype. And not to completely call out the commenter, but I believe they said that dropping that bomb on my parents over dinner was the wrong way to ask them to move back home. My bad guys, I should have sent them a Snapchat video of me breaking in one night. How the hell else was I going to ask?
I feel like these kinds of conversations can ONLY happen over dinner. Idk, maybe I’m the weird one.

I also should have clarified this more, but I didn’t quit my job and move back home. That would be idiotic. I certainly perpetuate millennial stereotypes (all of them), except being unemployed. You don’t quit a job until you have another one lined up. Gotta have fresh arms in the bullpen before you remove your starter. So I was working – and paying rent – at home. More on the deprogramming later, but stay tuned, because I had some A1 first day of work scaries earlier this week and I’m going to take you on a wild ride on Friday..

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Boston Max

Spending my retirement fund at Trader Joe's and trying to remember to check my mailbox semi-regularly

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