The Other Side

"I've taken up the habit of documenting the scene outside my kitchen window, when I am home to actually see it.  It is a known fact among my friends that my favorite time of day during the Summer is 6pm (between 4:30 and 5pm in Winter) because the light is beautiful. It is what I imagine the word "sun-kissed" to look like. Everything is bathed in a soft sunlight and the world just seems quiet and magical and peaceful.

From my kitchen window I can see a church with a cross in the steeple that appears to be neon at night. It is the church where Sen. Ted Kennedy's funeral was held. I watched the funeral procession from the front porch of my apartment. People visit the church to see where the Senator was honored and where 4 U.S. Presidents came to pay their respects to the liberal lion. But to me, this church means home.

I've spoken of home a few times here and it has always meant Hamden. Home has always been my parents house. The small Cape Cod style house on Willard Street but Boston has been a kind of home for me too. There was a time when I loved living here and during college when I would have to return to Hamden for the Summer I would be dying to get back to this city. Now I have 218 days left here and I am committed to enjoying each and every one of them.

Because I know that when I return to my parent's house I will miss Boston. I know that there will be days where I wish I could return. I have learned so much here, about everything, and it is not a place I want to come to resent. I made these decisions, no one else. Boston is not to blame for my unhappiness. I like to say that my unhappiness lives in Boston but I am in charge of that feeling. I can remember being unhappy in Hamden too sometimes. It follows me anywhere really.

Boston is not unhappiness but it is also no longer where I want to call home. It is an old city and I have grown old with it and within it. It will never be New York, New Haven or New Orleans but it will always be a place on the map that I can point to and call my home, even if it was just for a little while.

I choose to be optimistic. I don't want to return here someday and find that my resentment, my unhappiness and my debt still live here. For the next 218 days that I have left I will turn around my relationship with Boston and leave this place feeling nothing but love towards it. Like so many of my relationships, it is time for me to accept that the best is behind us and I am blessed to have experienced it. Any of it and all of it. I want to be able to look back on these days and smile, knowing I tried my best.

So that is why I have been photographing the sunsets. Another day done here and another day closer to home. But it is always a way for me to appreciate the day I had and a way for me to look back, months from now, and remind myself how beautiful life can be even when it seems to be completely painted with pain."

 I wrote this months ago and didn't post it for some reason. I think I had issues with the sentence structuring or something. Now I am sitting on the other side of those 218 days, in my parents house- my childhood home, missing Boston. I did everything I said I would do in that post. I made my peace with the city and now feel only love for it. There is no room for regret. My love for that city could fill it and I can't wait to go back and visit.

I'll miss the people the most. I made some wonderful friends in Boston. On dark days, they are the sunset. They are my 6pm.

My memories of Boston aren't based on what historic building I was near or what bar I was in or who stood on the same spot as me so many years ago. To me, those people, my friends, are the buildings. They are the history that I care to remember because we helped create it together. Even the people who have since left Boston. They have all helped to makes these past few years the best of my life. I hope to keep making memories with them.

Now that I am in the suburbs the buildings are smaller, the streets are less crowded and people look at me all confused when I tell them the name of my town. It's okay though. I am happy to be home. It was my plan all along and even though I fought it at some points I knew that this was the only choice I could make. I look out the kitchen now and see a different view but it's just as beautiful.

And someday, it will be this view that I will miss.