Today I went to the town I grew up in. I moved there when I was ten and it was home, or at least the family home, until a year ago. There's nothing there for me now. None of my friends still live there, the house is sold, the stores have all changed and the people look at me like I don't belong there. Which I don't; downtown Bellevue's gotten real rich lately, rich in a shallow and nasty way, and what I remember as an ordinary suburb with a smoothie shop and a drugstore has become a valet-parking-designer-outlet nightmare, a Jimmy Choo stiletto stamping on a human face, forever.
But I went to the park I used to go to as a kid, to Mercer Slough, and that was the same. Swampy, empty, quiet. Cattails and blackberries, ducks and herons. The little canoe dock I played on when I was ten years old was right there waiting for me. I had to be the one to leave it.
There's less than two months left now. Everything I do in Washington is starting to have "maybe for the last time" appended to it. That might have been the last time that I'll sit on that little dock. And I don't know exactly why I'm leaving. I like Tommy, but I'm not moving for him. I have good memories of Massachusetts, but they're really old ones. I very nearly threw a dart at a map.
I'm starting to get afraid. I have a nice apartment here, some good friends, a steady job that doesn't suck, I know my way around town. When I get to Boston I'll be lost and broke, I'll be couch-surfing and filling out job applications. Things could get screwed up. If I can't get a job, if I can only get a horrible minimum-wage job, if the apartments are too expensive or have horrifying roommates, if I spend every Friday night alone, if I don't know how to get around or what to do--I'll be a long way from home.
Except that I don't have a home. I have a rental that's ending in two months anyway. I have no possessions of note, no love of my life, no serious career, no children, no family here. I have history in Washington, but I don't have roots.
And that's the real reason I'm moving. Simply because I can. I'm going to get stuck somewhere (I hope), so I might as well see a little more of the world while I can. Life in Washington isn't bad, but I don't want it to be my whole life. Doing something for the last time makes me sad--but less sad, in the long run, than doing the same things over and over. In a new city there will be so many first times.
I can't tell myself that everything in Boston will be better, I can't tell myself that a new start will be easy or that I won't make mistakes, but it will be different. I'm ready for that.
There's a quiet little dock somewhere in Massachusetts, just waiting for me.
This is absolutely perfect description of why I moved to LA a few years ago, and how it felt. The fact that you take the opportunity to diss Bellevue (which has become a horrifying blight on the face of the Seattle metro area) is all bonus.
ReplyDeleteJ - I'm downright embarrassed to tell people I'm from Bellevue. I always want to explain that it used to be just a regular suburb, it was like a slightly nicer Kirkland or Issaquah or whatever, and it was only around 2000 that the plague of Valley Girls and Real Housewives took over.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit though, I lived in LA for a while and I didn't like that much either. I guess some of the outlying areas are decent but I found LA-metro itself to be a rather unpleasant divide between "filthy, crowded, and high-crime" or "$5000/month, 1br 1ba."
What will happen to your guns?
ReplyDeleteBruno - I'm hoping to keep them. The law is about as clear as the Book of Revelations written in Esperanto in mud, but I think that it won't be impossible to keep my already-owned guns if I jump through the proper hoops.
ReplyDeleteI have no roots anywhere either; as a child, my parents move constantly, and as an adult, I find myself moving every few years for various reasons. Add in the fact that I simply don't have much time for a social life of any kind, and my family's now mostly missing or dead, so... total tie-free nomad, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI did live in the Puget Sound Area for a time during the '90s (Specifically, Lynnwood) and... Bellevue's become *what*?! Blergh.
Man, I just can't imagine anyone who likes guns moving to MA. At least not without a million dollar a year job lined up. Hell, I won't even visit that godforsaken place.
ReplyDeleteBut, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I just moved from Upstate NY to Southerish FL.
ReplyDeleteI moved for nearly the same reson you said. I had all my family, friends and memories in NY, but no roots. Down here I'm waiting on my Cosmo license to transfer before I can work and I'm living with my boyfriend in his father's house. It's tough and I miss the people in NY something terrible at times, but it's a new start, and knowing that, feels good.
At least Boston's totally badass. Just saying. Apartment prices are going to suck, though.
ReplyDeleteCopy and paste doesn't work in your comment form. I just wrote a long post that got eaten.
ReplyDeleteI have a cheap apartment for rent if the burbs (about 35 min from the city without traffic) are a possibility.
You should be able to keep your guns as long as they don't run afowl of the former Fed AWB. Also, buy any pistols you want before you move.
Whether you get to carry depends entirely on what town you live in. My town issues permits to everyone who qualifies. Boston proper emphatically does not.
zeeke42 - Which burb? To be honest getting out of the burbs is one of my goals (I live 35 min from Seattle now and it's kind of a pain) but if you'd be okay with a shorter-term lease it might work out. Depends on the price/location, email me at pervocracy@gmail.com with details if you want to talk about this.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Holly! Do it while you're still unencumbered by other obligations, 'cause you will run out of time for this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteI lived in the Berkshires when I was in MA, and I loved it. Only got to do a few months there, and only a couple days in Boston-- I could have easily spent a LOT longer there.
I moved around to a lot of other places too, mostly for my work. I used to be in a field that required a lot of travel and frequent job changes. It was actually a pretty great opportunity when I was younger. It was a lot easier in that I always had a job already when I got there, but I think I'd still do it again in a heartbeat even if I had to move and then job hunt once I got there.
I'll hang out with you if you can't find anything to do on Saturday nights (I have to work Fridays).
ReplyDeleteI'm Boston born and raised, and your best bet is to actually move to Southern New Hampshire and just accept the commute.
ReplyDeleteI love Boston as a city, but you couldnt get me to put up with the taxes and the political climate for anything at this point.
"I'm starting to get afraid. I have a nice apartment here, some good friends, a steady job that doesn't suck, I know my way around town. When I get to Boston I'll be lost and broke, I'll be couch-surfing and filling out job applications. Things could get screwed up. If I can't get a job, if I can only get a horrible minimum-wage job, if the apartments are too expensive or have horrifying roommates, if I spend every Friday night alone, if I don't know how to get around or what to do--I'll be a long way from home."
ReplyDeleteY'know, this is actually the first entry in your blog that I ever read, I think, after Drew sent me the link (saying something like "this chick is completely fucking crazy, you'll like the blog"). After I read it for a while and started to enjoy your writing/gray matter processes, I heard you were moving here. This entry has been banging around in the back of my head for a while since then... and I thought, 'well, I'll wait until she's settled in, and blogged about a particularly busy weekend of kink or whatever, and then remind her of it.'
I kinda forgot about it, and then for some reason thought about it -- purely randomly -- today, when I surfed your blog for updates (and amusingly enough, it turns out that I was actually THERE for your recent Weekend O' Hatchetry, WATFO?).
So go back and re-read your entry above (esp. the part I copied, you at your most anxious) now, six months later. How are you feeling these days, you big, bright, shining Social Butterfly & Queen of Sexual Perversion? :)
(I feel like I should be talking to Dirk Diggler's cock -- "You're am a star. You're a star, You're a star, You're a star. You're a big, bright, shining star. That's right.").
Jack