It’s Not You, It’s Me (Or, Why I’m Leaving Boston)
If choosing a place to live is as important as choosing a mate, like some folks say, I guess it makes sense that walking away from the city I’ve called home for going on 20 years feels an awful lot like a break-up. Exhilaration, sadness, relief, trepidation … check, check, check, check.
Early on in my decision-making process, I thought a lot about exactly why it wasn’t working with me and B. I liked to trumpet B’s shortcomings: The weather, it sucks. The men, they are meatheads. The cultural offerings, they are limited. The T, where to fucking begin? Justifying the choice that in my heart was already made, I guess.
But, I mean, it would be disingenuous to pretend that there’s nothing good about B, nothing to recommend it to others, nothing I myself once appreciated enough to proudly call it home. It’s the same with relationships. Who’s the bigger fool? The colossally “flawed” one or the one who stays for 20 years?
No, no. Once upon a time, B was to me a beguiling city. Even now, there are moments when I catch her in just the right light and I am reminded of the city I chose as The One. Which leads me to the second stage of my decision-making process, wherein much time was spent thinking about whether or not B and I could be saved. Was I trying hard enough? Were my expectations too high? Had I failed B with my rose-colored glasses and castles in the sky?
I wanted to be the kind of person who can thrive anywhere, who placidly makes the most of every situation. In relationship terms, this is analogous to the person who has a marriage of convenience … material entanglements and little more, emotional investment kept to a minimum.
I wanted to be someone who could dial down the ache to be gotten, to be betrothed to their best friend. To my horror, I wanted—apparently—to be a character in a Tammy Wynette song … the stoic, long-suffering, lemonade-from-lemons heroine ideal.
It was a shakubuku realization. B and I didn’t fail each other. I failed myself.
I’m not Mother Theresa or some look-the-other-way politician’s wife. I want to be in love with where I live. Truly, madly, deeply. As Juno’s dad explains:
Look, in my opinion the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what-have-you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass.
Sadly, I never believed the sun shined out B’s ass. I thought I could live with that, but I was wrong.
See, I’m all rosy idealism and head-in-the-cloudiness. I want to be the kind of person who’s okay with that. I want that to be my gift to the world.
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- What other people said:
- #1 Chris
I’m not leaving because you’re not likable. I’m leaving because I don’t like you.
- #2 kirsten
or, in my case, i’m leaving because i don’t like myself when i’m with you. not to worry, i’m sure B with be just fine without me.
- #3 vieve
When I left, I felt like spinning around ecstatically on the top of a mountain, and also crying and puking and screaming and hiding under the covers. (In fact, I think I did all of those things, except that cheeseball mountain stuff.)
I had so many of the same feelings as you, trying to figure out why, how, whose fault, what the fuck am I doing I’ve been here FOREVER AAAAAAH! But I knew I had to (even though I am still figuring out the whys almost two years later), and I know it was one of the best and bravest things I’ve ever done.
- #4 kirsten
@vieve, i remember thinking you were mad ballsy to pull up stakes and take that leap of faith … not imagining, of course, in a couple of years i’d be doing the same thing. the puking/hiding under the covers phase has not shown itself just yet. i imagine that will come sometime between when i leave and when i pass some as-yet-unknown milestone at some as-yet-unknown point in the future.
thanks for the encouragement. it always helps to remember that i’m not the first to sail these waters.
Name's Kirsten. I'm a splitter of hairs, a hillbilly, a rock horns devotee, an ellipses-lovin' fool, and queen of the conceptual jinx. I'm also a geek and the grateful human of littleblackdog. I do this and that and some of the other … up to and including writing this here blog.
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