I have been feeling a lot of different emotions since I
found out about the bombing in Boston. They have run the gamut from sheer panic
(for my friends who live there) to relief (when I found out that they were
okay) to guilt (for feeling relieved and for not being there to help or to
share the shock) and now a profound sense of loss (for the protective bubble
that I lived in and for the shattered memories). For four years, I called
Boston my home. It was where I went to school, where I worked, and where I
played. I had a really hard time when I lived there. I didn’t feel like I fit
in, and I struggled A LOT.
For a long time, I blamed the city. I felt like an outcast, and
it was Boston’s fault. It was too much of a hustling, bustling, real city. Rent
was too high. There were too many buildings. Boston wasn’t radical enough. There
wasn’t a place that could be all mine. There were too many people, and they
weren’t nice enough. Everyone was trying to get ahead, to be smarter, and to do
better. No one was trying to nurture me, the special snowflake.
A little while ago, I made a trip back to my old stomping
grounds, and I realized that Boston was never the problem. I just happened to
live there at a tough point in my life. I was trying to figure out who I was,
and that is never a pretty process. In fact, it can be downright ugly, and it
can lead to YEARS of therapy. Seriously. But that isn’t because of Boston. The
city, and the people in it, challenged me to grow in my independence, to figure
out what I stand for, and to find out what is important to me. Those are not
bad things; I just wasn’t prepared for them.
So Boston (and its residents), as you pick yourselves up and
put yourselves back together, know that I am rooting for you and supporting you
from afar. You are a beautiful city with a rich, complicated history, and you
will always have a special place in my heart.
-
Lauren, former Boston resident and current Boston
cheerleader
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