My Love Affair with Boston...

Beacon Hill, wandering slowly up and down Hanover and Salem, following red bricks in the sidewalk along the Freedom Trail, stories of the Old West End, Fenway, walking to Charlestown, taking the ferry back, Italian food in the North End, kids wading in Frog Pond, shopping on Newbury Street, DeLuca's Market (old location and new)...my Boston.

Sweet memories of our spontaneous Saturday morning trips to Boston -

Saturday morning in our little village, the sun shines warmly through the window, softly filtered by the hundred year old trees outside.  He wakes up too and our eyes meet...we slowly wake up, it's early.  We smile, the thought comes to us both at the same moment...no work today, no plans, could this really be?  Waking so sweetly refreshed for it being so early.  We tiptoe around, grabbing a few things for the day, scoop our sleeping kids out of bed and into the car...we're on our way to Boston. 

"She said, I think I'll go to Boston, I think I'll start a new life, I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name, I'll get out of California, I'm tired of the weather, I think I'll get a lover and fly him out to Spain...oh yeah and I think I'll go to Boston, I think that I'm just tired, I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind...I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset, I hear it's nice in the summer, some snow would be nice, oh yeah...I think I'll go to Boson, where no one knows my name" - Augustana 

Get Up...Repeat (Back to New England)

We lived deeply, we fell hard, we are getting back up and literally repeating.  We are headed back to New England, where we left our hearts over a year ago.  We've realized the road isn't perfect or easy anywhere and so we may as well be in a place where walking out the door is enough to make us smile.  Look at this street in Old Wethersfield...tree lined streets, the changing of seasons.  Even from this casual photo you can see traces of the deep love for its own history, and that's what I love about New England!     

I love stories of people who go to the West Coast, California, Texas, New York City, or North Carolina because that's the place that was calling them.  For us, New England calls us, and if I could simultaneously live in dozens of the places I love there I would, but for now I'm content to live in my peaceful little village and explore the states around me to my hearts content, something very easy to do in New England where it seems you can get anywhere you want to in only a few hours!  That is, after we get all the necessities of life taken care of upon arrival...place to live...job.  The first few months will be a matter of survival, but we have done it before.   

It will be a few more years before all things are completed that will put us in a more comfortable stage of life, but in the meantime this is still our life going on right now - precious moments, days and years together with my sweet husband and our boys.  We don't want to miss out on precious time by just letting it pass by without choosing the way we want to spend our time on earth. 

Each day, each moment really is a gift.  For us, that is what this choice is mostly about.  Something that can be hard for people to understand....why you would move 2,700 miles away to live in a smaller apartment for more money.  For us, the trade in square footage is worth the benefits!  Plus, the small apartment won't last forever, we will have a house at some point when school is done, but the memories will last a lifetime! 

Things are not going to be especially easy for us the next few years no matter where we are, so we are going to choose where we want our story to play out.  New England, tickling me with it's dramatic seasons and endless treasures of town greens, villages and history to explore, will be the setting for the next chapter of our lives.