It has been one of those weeks where my emotions are in such turmoil that I simply can’t string together the right words. I am from New York. I live on the Jersey Shore. If there were ever a place I called home outside of the the Adirondack Coast, it’s Boston. I spent a collective 10 years between Back Bay, Alston, Brighton and Southie. I still say wicked. [So much so that it rubbed off on my mother- it totally makes me giggle when she says it].
My husband is finding it hard to understand the depth of my emotion over the Marathon Day bombings. He understands the tragedy of the event, the lives lost, the pain endured and the heroes made. But he just doesn’t get it. Not like I get it. It doesn’t hurt him the way it has hurt me. I am not diminishing his ability to empathize. But for those of us that came of age in Boston and no longer live there, you know. Anyone that left their youth in Boston understands where I am coming from.
I am not usually one that gets nostalgic. I don’t yearn for the past. I am always about the next adventure. But right now, I miss my early Boston days. When the city was my oyster. I miss Emerson College and everyone and everything about it. Right now I want to sit at ‘the wall’ chain smoking camel lights, with my sisters talking politics and film. I want to run up the stairs to Crossroads to play darts with the Phi Alpha boys. I want to got to an RDO party on Friday and follow it up with Theta on Saturday. I want Taco Bell delivery. I want to dress up and go to Hand-me-Down Night. I want to roller blade home from work, through Copley Square and Back Bay at 2am. I want to wait in line to get tickets to Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Cartoon Festival. I want to catch a show at the Middle East. I want to use a fake ID to get into Bill’s Bar. I want bleacher seats for $7. And I want to end my night with a Guinness Float. I want everything that makes me feel closer to Boston.
It’s sad that it takes tragedy to remind you of the things you learned, appreciated and loved. We can’t let these reminders just dissipate when the last news truck pulls away down the Mass Pike. It’s time to reach out, tell people you love them. Let them know how they touched your life. The time is always now. We must rise above this anger and violence. Spread gratitude. Teach compassion. Move away from conflict, towards peace. We are in this life together. Remember that you love and are loved. The only way we can ever move forward is through love.
Marathon Day will always be my favorite day of the year, that’s never going to change. No bomber can or will take that away from me. One day, I’ll bring my husband back to Boston in April for Marathon Day. We’ll have tickets to the game and when the Sox win, we’ll bar crawl our way from Kenmore to Copley…ending at the Parish with some elephant’s walking on eggs.
