boston, it's been real

Things have been busy. This is the year when everything transitions, and I have been waiting for this for a while now. I finally finished school. I got engaged. I interviewed for some jobs. I decided to pick up and move to California. This is the start of the life that I've been waiting for, and the anticipation is intoxicating.

I'll miss a lot of things about Boston. Tomorrow will be my last day rowing on the Charles, which has been fantastic and invigorating and gorgeous. I'll miss the blue herons and the crowned night herons and the ducklings in spring. I won't miss the piles of goose poo on the dock. At all.

I'll definitely miss the hockey community here, and I think I'll always be a Bruins fan since Boston was the city where I learned about and grew to love hockey. I only hope I can find a cool league or team to play with out in California...

I find it sort of comforting now to hear people's Boston accents, to see people make 3-point turns in the middle of a busy street, to overhear uber-nerd conversations in the hallways of MIT. I used to think I could really live here for a long time, but now I am sort of itching for a change. James (my fiance...!) and I are planning to finally do that cross-country road trip that we've always wanted to do. We will leave in about one month (after I learn to drive stick??) with our camping gear in the trunk and our stuff shipped in boxes to Cali or sold to craigslist buyers. It's incredible the quantity of "stuff" we have in our apartment, and it's kind of refreshing to make those tough decisions about what to keep and what to toss or give away. Remind me again why I've been carrying around all this junk for years? Of course I will keep my sewing machine, my good yarns, my fabric stash (it's small), and my textbooks. Some things are too special to get rid of. ;) What really matters is that I will have my Jimmy James and we are going to California, where we get married and find awesome jobs and plant a huge garden and adopt a kitty. I can't wait!