The Obvious and Yet Still Profound
This morning, talking to a friend who is waiting to hear back from grad schools, I suddenly stopped and thought about what it would have meant for my life if I hadn't come here. If I had taken the offer from Irvine, for example, or if I can squeaked into Stanford. What window would I be looking out of as I type this if I were living on the opposite coast?
It is, simply, unimaginable.
Making the decision to come back to Boston was easy. As soon as I got the phone call from Tufts it was as if someone had started singing - choirs of angels, perhaps. I was at the Denver Zoo when I found out, it was Spring Break and I was gallivanting about with white_lab_rat, and I think I will always have a fondness for dik-diks and penguins because those were the animals I was looking at when I found out. The first thing I thought, after the knee-buckling wave of relief had passed, was "I get to go back to my other home." I knew that the process of making this area my home again would be easy - at least, far easier than trying to establish roots anywhere else. Knowing Winnie and hawver and meeting the people at And/or made everything simple - there was always somebody close that I could call if I needed to and they welcomed me back with open arms. I wouldn't have met desiringsubject and formlesspassion and imfvd and my life would be much the poorer for that. If I'd gotten into Stanford I would still own a car, and I'd get to see more of aznbkwrm but I probably wouldn't know that people like fyfer, jencallisto, or simplykimberly even existed within driving distance of me.
I might be more focused on my schoolwork, because I wouldn't have had a social network to step into. But that seems a poor and thin sort of consolation, if I can even call it that since I seem to be doing just fine scholastically. And I cannot imagine having quite this love of place anywhere else. I cannot imagine being somewhere else and walking home at night and feeling a surge of love for the familiarity of streets and shops and houses, for the fierce pride of feeling that there is a community here to which I belong.
I remember, vaguely, that as I was waiting for my letters of acceptance or rejection knowing that this was a decision that would irrevocably alter everything that came after it. It never came home to me until today, though, how concretely different my life would have been if one of those letters had had different words printed upon it.
It is, simply, unimaginable.
Making the decision to come back to Boston was easy. As soon as I got the phone call from Tufts it was as if someone had started singing - choirs of angels, perhaps. I was at the Denver Zoo when I found out, it was Spring Break and I was gallivanting about with white_lab_rat, and I think I will always have a fondness for dik-diks and penguins because those were the animals I was looking at when I found out. The first thing I thought, after the knee-buckling wave of relief had passed, was "I get to go back to my other home." I knew that the process of making this area my home again would be easy - at least, far easier than trying to establish roots anywhere else. Knowing Winnie and hawver and meeting the people at And/or made everything simple - there was always somebody close that I could call if I needed to and they welcomed me back with open arms. I wouldn't have met desiringsubject and formlesspassion and imfvd and my life would be much the poorer for that. If I'd gotten into Stanford I would still own a car, and I'd get to see more of aznbkwrm but I probably wouldn't know that people like fyfer, jencallisto, or simplykimberly even existed within driving distance of me.
I might be more focused on my schoolwork, because I wouldn't have had a social network to step into. But that seems a poor and thin sort of consolation, if I can even call it that since I seem to be doing just fine scholastically. And I cannot imagine having quite this love of place anywhere else. I cannot imagine being somewhere else and walking home at night and feeling a surge of love for the familiarity of streets and shops and houses, for the fierce pride of feeling that there is a community here to which I belong.
I remember, vaguely, that as I was waiting for my letters of acceptance or rejection knowing that this was a decision that would irrevocably alter everything that came after it. It never came home to me until today, though, how concretely different my life would have been if one of those letters had had different words printed upon it.