In the early summer of 2003, I bid adieu to the only state I had lived in for the first 25 years of my life. It was difficult, but ultimately a move that had to be made for us to move into the next phase of life for the couple that hadn't even been married a year. Kathleen's family drove up from Texas, and we packed our stuff in all of our vehicles and took the long trip to Texas.
Five years later, flush with a new job for myself and an offer for Kathleen to attend Boston Conservatory, we once again packed up our lives and cats, set out in a U-Haul for another must-day trip to a new home. This time, Boston came calling. We moved into our little 550 square foot abode thinking it would be a temporary set up and once she was done, we'd figure out what'd be next.
Twelve years later...it's time to go back home.
To understand what's about to happen, let's go back in time just a little bit. It's December 2018/January 2019 and I'm finishing up my chemotherapy. I was closer to having just finished a treatment than going in for the next one, and it was a particularly cold night in Boston. Single digit cold, and one of those days where I had gone to work, but the cold just got into my system. My nerves were still messed up to where anything cold I drank instantly zapped me, the chill was in my body, I was tired, and I was generally just fed up with things. Exasperated, on the couch I just looked at Kathleen and said "I'm done. I'm over winter, and we need to go somewhere once this is all done." We had already been staring at the fact that maybe Boston wasn't for us anymore, and in that moment I had had it.
It was one of those private moments that you don't blog about, post on Facebook, or tweet about because you don't want to let people know that things aren't going well in that moment. Those are the moments only your partner sees, and is there to comfort you with. She just stroked my arm, said "OK, we can talk about it later," and I was able to relax for the night.
It had already been on our mind because life seemed to be pulling us away from the city. We've made some amazing friends up here, and yet one by one life took them all different corners of the country. Little by little, the friend network we had here was becoming increasingly remote, and while I still felt like I had great support last year, it had become more apparent than ever that a lot of what had made Boston appealing for us had gone away.
Flash forward to late June last year. and we are back in Chapel Hill to celebrate a beautiful wedding between two wonderful people, and I got the chance to really celebrate being one month removed from surgery. The last 12 hours or so of it aside, with the leaking issue, I couldn't help but to just look around my home state and just feel a warm embrace. The ability to catch up with my friends, and realizing just how many of them still lived in the area made it click to where it felt like the state was calling me back. Kathleen realized it as well, and felt the same that I did. Our time in North Carolina as a couple had been short, but had been amazing. The cost of living would be less, and thanks to my new role at my job, I wouldn't have to ask for a transfer. I literally just have to tell them our new address, and I'm all set. As we came back, we decided at that point it was time to start looking.
So yes, this has been something brewing for a while now. Once my best friend got a job offer in Portland and moved across the country, it was the final straw. This was on the heels of my official remission proclamation, and since the organ that housed the tumor is no longer in my body, the next four years of maintenance will literally just be getting a CT scan to make sure nothing else looks worrisome. We don't have to be in Boston for that, and my surgeons had already told me getting follow up in another state wouldn't be an issue.
Thus, earlier this year we booked a trip down to the state to hunt apartments, make sure that we could have a place to live and start to get a lay of the land. I mean, it was all set, plane tickets, almost a full week, plans to see a Canes game, dinner with friends, and a free hotel thanks to all the points I had built up. It was going to be great!
Thanks COVID-19.
We were originally planning to fly down for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, but as we all know, a week prior is when the whole world came to a screeching halt. We missed our flights-I applied for a refund but am still waiting, by the way (I should probably call JetBlue about that)-and began our next two month routine of not leaving the apartment. Luckily, since my job is a work from home job anyway, it hasn't really required that much in the way of adjustment, but it's emphasized just how little room we really have here in the city. We do a good job at not staying on top of each other, but this has just sealed the deal that we have to have more than one big room that also houses a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. We love each other, and we also need to be able to escape each other once in a while. Hell, I need to be able to work 8-5 every day in my own space and be able to tune everything else out. I had gotten used to doing that before all this, and while Kathleen has done a great job of adjusting, we still manage to crawl over each other. It just isn't sustainable.
So, where to look? Well, as we had narrowed ourselves down to one car, we needed a place that was easy to get around. I needed to have easy access to good hospitals for follow up, as a fifteen minute drive to everything spoils you quickly. I also needed to be in a place that was easily accessible by air travel for friends/family who wanted to come to visit, and also be in a location that had more than a few friends close by. I also wanted to be close to my family, as I've missed a lot by not being in the area for 17 years.
Add it all up, and the answer was Chapel Hill.
Luckily, in this digital age, we were able to do everything via phone calls and the Internet. We applied to a few places, but ultimately settled on a location on the north end of the city with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full kitchen, a small patio, washer/dryer, and all for about $600/month less than what I'm paying now. All of the paperwork was signed electronically, the truck has been rented, and the boxes are starting to gather.
In short-on June 8th, Kathleen and I will once again become residents of North Carolina.
Boston has given us a lot, and in the end it was the perfect city for us for our 30's. We both got to experience living in a major metropolitan area after growing up in very small towns, got (unfortunate) chances to see the amazing medical ability of this city first hand, saw more than enough snow to last us the rest of our lives, and saw a city come together for an unspeakable tragedy. Boston is always going to be a special part of our lives, and we have cherished the time we had here.
In the end, though, it's time to move on. Our biggest disappointment in the timing of all of this is minor compared to what others are dealing with, but it's that we won't really be able to give the city a proper good bye. Kathleen has a lot of places that she wanted to experience one more time that just are going to have to wait for another trip, and we were both hoping for one more trip to Fenway to bask in the Green Monster before leaving the city. Life just decided on something else, apparently.
I'll say this much for Boston-before we moved here at the beginning of June 2008, the city was just starting its championship run. The Pats had their three Super Bowls and the Sox had their two World Series. Since we moved here, though, the Celtics took a title, the B's took a Cup, the Sox took two more World Series, and the Pats won three more Super Bowls. I saw the duck boats on TV more than in person.
All I'm saying is that if any of the Boston teams don't win a title for a while, you'll know why.
So, we begin the process of packing up our lives one more time, hoarding the cats into a truck, and beginning a new chapter in an old place. I think it's fair to say, we can't wait...we just wish everything would magically pack itself.
