It's Beginning to Feel Real

Four weeks from now, I'll become a San Franciscan. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to sigh with relief or curl into the fetal position below my desk and whimper. Either way, each day it becomes more real. If you only had four weeks left, what would you do? I've started to create a Bucket List. All of the "must-do" things in Boston and New England before I head west, and most of them associated with one or more of my fun and fantastic friends from Beantown. I'll list more of them as we go forward, but want to set the stage.

I've been in Boston now for five years. Five incredibly fast years. And now that that time is drawing to a close, I have little time to stop and think, much less time to begin regretting what I haven't accomplished in my time here. So rather than feeling any remorse or regret, I am choosing to spend the next four weeks living. Living as much as possible through the memories and moments with special people doing special things in special places. And I will begin to track those moments and memories through a blog and photos. So this is my point of lift-off; this is where I'll keep my diary and follow my heart through the living memories of my friends and last moments in a place I never expected to become so important and beautiful to me.

This is my Beantown-to-San Francisco log and history. Won't you join me for the ride?

Today it all became very real. I submitted my notice to my landlord and thanked them for five years of being an otherwise invisible landlord. They could have easily evicted me for going on the roof where we don't have handrails, or for having raging parties with more than 200 people crammed in our abode. They could have removed us because of the noise, the Friday night music with little Fajardo, or the barking and wailing of Tank. They could have called the police for the heels-and-wigs parties that happened at random - usually in the middle of the night.

 As the bills are changed into the names of my roommates, each step relieves a stress of responsibility and ensures a greater anxiousness, for I'm not only relinquishing my responsibility, I'm also giving up all those things that tie me to this place. These are what make an apartment your home: the people, the bills, the mail, the rent. And one by one, they're being set free from the permanent and otherwise required nature in my life. From now, these people will be in my life because we've mutually agreed to being friends, and not just because we live together or near each other. From here we become real friends, to stand the test of 3,000 miles and an excess of time.

 This is where it starts.