Missing Home on a Sunday Night

I left Minnesota because I don’t like small talk and the way vowels seem to drag as if everyone has all the time in the world to listen to what I have to say. I wanted to leave because I was never fatally attached to my friends and knew from a young age that as long as I had my family, somewhere, I would be able to survive. I wanted to leave because I was tired of being distracted by my parents who made my life too comfortable. I left because nobody else was doing it.

I came to Boston because I like to win, and the East coast is the place to go to get ahead- and I’m not referring to time zones. It’s no coincidence that the Red Sox, The Celtics and the Patriots all had wonderful seasons after I moved to Boston; it’s a city of winners. I love the autumn leaves on Commonwealth Ave, wine and afternoon reading on the esplanade along the Charles River and the sound of waves lapping against the wharf as the gulping birdsong of seagulls sounds in the background with the consistency of a blaring alarm clock. Boston is great. Good-looking college students wander the streets in a daze from too much partying or studying- it’s hard to tell which. Trim professionals in well-cut suits hurry with expensive phones pressed to their ears as they urgently move to attend meetings or buy another cup of coffee. For the most part the residents of Boston have brains- they write for important journals, buy local, read the New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, The Daily Beast. They’re politically correct, they think the only states that matter border the ocean, they drink expensive cocktails. Boston is a great place to live. For a while, anyway.

In the three years I’ve spent in Boston, I’ve realized that I may not, in fact, be fatally attached to my friends and family, but they’re more important to me than I ever thought possible. My connection to Minnesota is strong and deep. I don’t want to be on the ocean if the sea levels are rising, I don’t want to live in a city that has viable reason to fear a terrorist attack. I want to live in a city where my rent isn’t ridiculously high, where my mom can come over on Sundays to help me decorate and teach me how to make white bean chili and braided bread. I want to walk around the lakes and play cribbage in small cafes with The Currant as my own (our own) personal soundtrack to life.

Minnesota, I’m coming back. It may take a while, but I’ll return to you.