Move.

Growing up, my grandparents lived six hours away in Ocean View, New Jersey. Six hours. In a pre cross country road trip world, six hours might as well be four years. My parents tried to throw the travel time into perspective for us by converting the hours into increments of time we could wrap our minds around. Ocean City, New Jersey is six hours away from Massachusetts which is equal to two The Sound of Musics, four The Little Mermaids, six Star Trek: The Next Generations, and twelve Reading Rainbows away. Pretty far.

Since Grandma and Grandpa lived a whopping twelve Reading Rainbows away, we didn't get to see them as often as I wished we could have, so our time there was always really special and, as is typical of treasured time, went by in a flash. It didn't seem fair that six hours could drag on for so long when six days went by in what seemed like one Opening Credits Sequence of Star Trek. Obviously, leaving my grandparents' house in New Jersey was always a real bummer, but I remember my mother reminding us that we had to leave in order to be able to come back.

So I'm 22 now and I'm finally realizing what she meant by that. For years I brushed it off: If we just stayed at Grandma's or Disney World or wherever it was that was so hard to say good-bye to, we'd be happy forever. Sure, we'd be happy, but soon it wouldn't be special anymore. It'd be regular. It'd be toast. Time would eventually slow back down to normal, the hours would become hours again and someplace else would become the coveted escape from the familiar.

Right now I feel like I could stay in Massachusetts forever. It's great here. So great in fact, that I could almost forget why I can't stay. It's easy here. It's stable. It's familiarly filled with memories of my most favorite years and moments and people but at the same time, I know that I can't be a grown up in a place where I've always, until now, been a kid. Being home makes me want to hold onto a part of my life that cannot exist anymore, and for every hour that I sit here wishing I didn't have that damn apartment to go back to in L.A., a city that I have come to associate with sunshine and bitterness and opportunity and stress, there's a second when I remember that I have to go back there for awhile so I can look forward to coming home. That second is all it takes. 

I will always only love Boston. Only, only, only and I will be back for good someday. I've got to hand it to L.A. though- it was moving there that made me realize how truly special the East Coast really is and how wonderful it is to come back to. I don't know how long it will take, or how many Titanics I am from my triumphant return to Beacon Hill, but when it happens, I know I'll appreciate it.