Love Letter to Beantown

I still remember the time, place, and emotions when I got my decision for grad school. It was my final year at the University of Cincinnati, and I was working part-time as a desk assistant in Daniels Hall. It was the last 15 minutes before my replacement, who is a close friend, would need to take over. But he showed up earlier so that we could hang out for a bit before I had to go to class. We were talking about plans for our graduation party, but the truth was I was only half paying attention because I was stressing about grad school. I had gotten only rejections until that point. I went on my phone to text another friend to ask if she was coming to the class I was going to when I got a notification from Emerson College regarding my application. The next few minutes can only be described as exuberant elation; I had actually gotten in at one of the best schools in the country and will be living in one of my favorite cities in the world, Boston.

I spent exactly one year in Boston, and it was a blissful experience. It was hard in the beginning because I had to start from scratch again. I spent four years in Ohio building a life and now I had to start over, but I made it work. I often say that Cincinnati is where I learned to walk, and Boston is where I learned to sprint.

I met some of the best people I know, like my peers in my Master's program. These are people I believe will be Peabody and Pulitzer Prize winners one day. You could always find the lot of us hunched around a corner table at The Tam, drinking cheap beer until one in the morning. We’d then get pizza slices at the spot next door before we parted to take our respective trains back home.

I even met strangers who would go on to be very important people in my life. One I met at a random club on New Year's Eve who is now my closest friend. I met a social worker through a mutual friend who has now become an inoperable part of my life. While the experiences I had were magical, it wouldn’t have meant as much if I didn’t have these people to share it with.

It was like I was a whole new person. A man reborn with charisma and confidence, I felt like I could take on anything. That’s the effect the city has on you; it truly is special.

While the time I spent in Boston was brief, it taught me more than I could have hoped. Those strolls on Newbury Street, sitting on Harvard Square with my black coffee and watching some of the smartest minds in the country converse, taking the T and watching the city’s working class get to work, and driving down Soldier's Field Road with the Charles River serenading you with views.

Those moments seemed trivial while I was living them, but looking back, these are what I remember the most. 

As Andrew Bernard from The Office once said, 'I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you've left them.'