"I would've taken it if I were you," my mom said when I told her about my newest life drama. "You have nothing tying you down."
Um...leave my favorite place in the world? Does she not know me at all?
I can honestly say I've given up a lot for this city. In 2007, I moved here from south of the Mason Dixie Line after graduate school. I walked away from three dear friends and a serious relationship. Well, technically, the guy walked away from me. We tried long distance, and I even tried to get him to move up here with me, but no dice.
However, I didn't mourn the loss of NapoDyno for long. I cried for maybe like three hours tops, ate a chocolate-covered coffee roll from Dunks, and I felt so much better. I mean, come on, I had Boston! And, she is soooo much better than NapoDyno.
I've wanted to live in Boston my entire life, and I can't explain why. I've just always felt drawn to this wondrous city. So, here I was, dammit. Sure, I was boyfriendless, but I had Boston to distract me, and it did.
Then in June 2010, my love of Boston was a catalyst in the demise of another relationship. He hated it here and kept applying for jobs out of state. It eventually lead to tensions and him deciding I was way more into the relationship than he was. It hurt like a kick in the face by a person wearing golf shoes. But, if he hated Boston so much, we obviously weren't meant to be together anyway. Ironically, I hear he's living in Quincy now. Which is kind of sad, yet funny. Way to get out of dodge, Sasquatch.
So, once again, I found myself on my couch, crying, but with the comfort that I still had Boston to come home to. And, she would never dump me...no matter what.
Two months later I moved out to Cambridge and fell in love all over again. Not with a dude, but with Cambridge and Davis Square. I n fact, I love my apartment so much that my poor landlord will have to drag my decaying body out of it because I'm never leaving. I'll even tolerate the yappy dog next door and the busybody neighbor who's always all up in our business. This place is worth it, believe me.
I remember taking the T home from work the first time after my move and seeing the magnificent view of the Charles River as the redline crossed over the Longfellow Bridge. God, I love this city, I thought to myself as I craned my neck to see the skyline whizzing by and the river gleaming in the setting sun. I smiled and silently offered thanks to Boston for saving me from a boring life in freaking Connecticut with a cheap bastard who had more hair on his hands than on his freaking head.
Flash forward to April 2011, which was literally the best of times and the worst of times for me. The company I worked for decided to close the Boston office. I was told I could keep my job if I moved to California.
Now most people who I've told this to think I'm certifiably insane. Who wouldn't want to move to Sunny SoCal? Nerdrodite, that's who! Hello, Boston is the love of my life!
Boston is my home. I love her for better or for worse. I just hope she loves me as much as I lover her.
My brother and I were lucky enough to have spent oodles of time with Gram and Gramps when we were munchkins. They babysat us every Monday night while my mom went back to school and my dad worked afternoons.
I have wonderful memories of spaghetti dinners (or sketty as Gramps called it), Wheel of Fortune, dunkin cookies, and picture books.
Gram used to put me on her lap and read me these wonderful tales about this freckled little kid named Sam and his group of friends. My favorite charatcer was Jenny, who was kind of a bitch, but she had a kick ass closet of dress up clothes. I would’ve put up with her if she let me play in that closet.
I lived for these books. In fact, I made Gram read them to me over and over and over and over again. She only had three of them because they were out of print and extremely hard to find. According to my mom, Gram used to scour the bookstores in downtown Chicago hoping to find more. But, I was content and kept on rereading them.
As I grew older our time together began to consist of other things: Golden Girls reruns, shopping trips to Kohl’s (She was always up for helping me pick out a cute girlie shirt.), phone calls about my disastrous life, and what happened on the most recent episode of Ugly Betty. And, so I forgot about Sam and Jenny…until this June, when she passed away.
The day she died, I went over to Sassy’s for comforting. Unfortunately, his way of offering support consisted of getting laid and then telling me he was thinking of moving out of state. Another reason why I’m soooooo much better off without his hairy ass, but I digress.
As I lie (did I use this right? Lie and lay always screws me up.) on his child-sized bed, staring up at his stupid Spiderman posters (Yeah, he actually had them. Dude was 30. I mean, that’s cute when you’re like 12, but a grown man with freaking Spiderman posters? Should've been a major red flag.) trying to hold back the tears brewing from such an emotional day, I randomly thought of how special those times when Gram would read me those stories were. The things you realize when someone’s gone, huh?
So, just three weeks later I found myself on my Mumsie’s couch, grieving over Sassy’s decision to throw me back into the ocean of single women, and once again Sam and Jenny popped into my head.
At that moment I just knew I had to get my hands on those books. The problem was, I could not remember what exactly they were called. My usually awesome memory had failed me, and all I could remember was that they were about Sam and Jenny, and Jenny was a bitch with cute clothes.
So, I emailed my cousins to see if Gram ever read the books to them. Eureka! She had! But, no one else could recall the name of the series either.
My mom and I searched the internet for hours, attempting different search terms. Nothing. I was crushed. Finding these books had become an obsession. I just had to recapture that part of my childhood. I wanted those memories back so badly.
During one of my searches I randomly stumbled upon some research paper about teaching kids to share, and the writer quoted Jenny Learns a Lesson, which just happened to be my favorite of the three books Gram had! Yay for me and my Google search engine skills.
But, I was faced with the problem Gram had years ago. These books were still out of print. The only way I could get them would be to buy used copies from people on Amazon. I really didn’t want to do that. I’m not very trusting. But, I was content that I had at least found them, and if I decided to take the leap of Amazon faith, I knew I could always change my mind and order them later on. I knew their names, and I knew they were out there…somewhere.
Three months later, the day before my little brother’s wedding in fact, my cousin wrote on my FB wall: I have a surprise for you.
I seriously had an instant vision of her handing me the books and me crying. It would be so freakin’ cool if that happened! I thought to myself. And, you just might be a little psychic.
She arrived at the wedding, and I pretty much attacked her. “Where’s my surprise?!?!?!” And get this! She made me wait for over two hours before revealing what she had for me. How mean is that?
K-you know I love you. But, that was so not fun.So, we trudged out into the rainy September afternoon and what does she pull out of the back of my aunt’s minivan?
The books! All three of them! In their bookish glory!
Apparently, my aunt found them while cleaning out Gram’s house and was about to give them away to the Salvation Army when my awesome little cuz spotted them, remembering that I had asked her about them months ago.
I hugged Sam and Jenny’s adventures to my chest and wiped away a couple of tears. I can’t even describe the feelings of happiness that washed over me at that moment. Plus, I think I’m psychic now. Maybe I can get my own hotline.
That’s a pretty freakin’ sweet story, don’t ya think?