With the new year, I'd like to be a little more open with y'all on what I do, who I am, and where I spend my time. When I first started the blog, I shared some more personal parts of my life, because ultimately, that is why I had started the blog in the first place. I've become a lot more of a private person throughout the past several years, so I shied away from sharing anything personal. But I think there's definitely a healthy medium here, because I've seen other bloggers that I so admire succeed in this endeavor.
So we'll start with:
New England Bred & Living in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Growing up in a more urban setting for the first half of my adolescence in Massachusetts is probably what most of you expect. In the summer, we were splashing around in each other’s backyards, running through the sprinkler. In the fall, we watched the trees change colors, and by October we were all starting to bundle up to walk to school. In the winter, we were building snow-forts, sometimes with different rooms, along the sides of the roads where the snow would pile up from the snowplows. And finally, the spring would come, and we would start to play street sports outside, rain or shine. I loved growing up in a small city, where there were 30 other boys on the street, (“boys” being the key term to focus on.) It was so much fun, because there was always something going on!
As a naïve 20-year-old, I moved out on my own to Somerville, MA, which is part of Metro-Boston. I lived in Winter Hill for three and a half years in a shitty apartment where the washer was located in the kitchen and the dryer was in the unfinished basement that smelled like a mixture of mold and moth-balls. I was told by neighbors, that I lived right across the street from the building where Whitey Bulger and his gang used to do their dirty deeds, which was kind of cool slash kind of scary. Not sure if I ever told my parents THAT when I moved out! Oops! I REALLY wanted to get out on my own, I guess.
Living in Winter Hill, in hindsight, was probably not the safest and brightest idea I’ve ever had. But getting out on my own was something I really wanted to do, because at the time, my relationship with my parents was deteriorating from my rebellious phase! So I moved out, worked full-time, and smoked as many cigarettes with Karina on my porch as I pleased!
I’ve been in Cambridge for a year and a half now, which has been a complete blessing. Boston/Cambridge is probably the best city in the Northeast in my opinion. I know that may sound like a silly thing to say with New York City here and all, but Cambridge (and I included Boston and Metro-Boston in this, but specifically Cambridge) is so special. It’s not this ginormous city that’s so overwhelming that you feel like you’re going to have a nervous breakdown as soon as you hit the pavement. (Oye, New York, you scare me!) Random thought: It often drives me nuts when people who grew up basically in New Hampshire or something say that “I’m from Boston”.... Because I’m sorry, you’re not from Boston. I spent all of high school in Boston, my dad has worked in Boston since I came out of the womb, and I’ve been living here for almost five years now! ANYHOOO, Cambridge, in particular, is a quirky city, because it has so different types of people. There is a pretty large hipster-community and so many crunchy granola-eating hikers, but then there are the intellects that go to Harvard and MIT and Tufts, which are all ivy-leagues, I believe. And then there are the townies, who were born and raised in Cambridge by blue-collar workers and are blue-collar workers to this day. And then there are the bros that are from Billerica or Foxboro who eat, sleep, and poop out the Patriot’s and all New England sports. Of course, I can’t forget the rather hefty foreign-population dominated by the Indian, Middle-Eastern, and Asian cultures, and of course, our massive Irish community! (I’ve lived with other locals like myself, an Indian, two Iranians, and an Irishman!)
If I ever go out at night for a pint, it’s almost always in a dive bar of some sort. I can’t deal with the clubs in the city (as in Boston) because that’s where all the unintelligent bro-culture festers, which is something that I stay far away from. My apartment has started to become a mecca where my new roommate and I’s friends will gather, which is something that pleases me so much. Having a home where our friends feel that they can escape to, is really special, I think, especially seeing that most of us girls are single, in our mid/late-twenties. The other night I had a girlfriend of mine over who’d never seen my place, and she said “your home looks like a Wes Anderson film!” That was kind of music to my ears, so I’ll have to share some photos of the place.
Cambridge/Boston is where I feel most at home. It’s where I’ve grown up as a young adult and it’s where I made all my first-time mistakes that I’ll never be making again! Ha! I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, because I know that Nashville is always in the back of my mind. But I think one of my favorite things to do in this city is walk. Lately, I’ve been hoppin’ on the T with my day-bag and some big-ass headphones blasting my favorite bluegrass tunes, and I'll just walk around the city. I love doing it by myself especially, because if I want to stop in a shop and walk around, I don’t have to feel rushed by anyone else (which is one of my major frustrations about shopping with others, hence why it never happens.) I always think to myself how romantic it must be to have a partner and ride the subway together. I think I’ve ridden the subway once or twice with a boyfriend, and for some reason it was so exciting to me! So I guess, it wouldn’t be THAT big of a bump in my grind to allow someone else into that little tradition of mine… Woah, off-track. So ANYWAYS I love my home.
Oh Metro-Boston, how I adore thee.
