10. Goodbye Boston

Friends that I made during orientation lived in housing provided by the non-profit they worked for through AmeriCorps. This was a house that the non-profit filled with people who were transitioning from houselessness to more long term housing. We lived with a few middle aged males who were finding jobs, saving money for a security deposit, and finding stable income. One thing I never quite understood was why there were empty rooms. When arriving I had the pick of about 5 rooms. There were plenty of people the organization was serving who could have used it. One guess is only few passed the background checks necessary, but I never really asked. The people we did live with had their quirks, but we got along for the most part.

The house was located in Haverhill, Mass, at the top of the commuter train line just below New Hampshire. It was the next town over from where I worked, and because it was low-income housing I could live there for 30% of what I earned. The others lived there for free as a benefit for working there. I was very nervous to move in..repeatedly asking if it was okay. I got a lot of reassurance that they wanted to live with me. It was just what I needed.

The three girls living there were named Mica, Lo, and Penny. We all came from very different backgrounds and had very different goals, but we all had similar values and treated each other kindly. 

Lo was very impressively smart. Her father was a professor at Yale, and it was her dream to go to Yale Medical School. She was also a second generation immigrant to the US, and strongly believed in Eastern medicine. I loved listening to her talk about this passion. I learned some things about it, but it was mostly interesting to hear how she wanted to integrate useful things from her culture into medical models that were deemed “inferior” to mainstream westernized medicine. She also made delicious Korean food and would share it once in a while. She was a Fulbright Scholar, and worked at the shelter to coordinate medical services. Socially Lo was very reclusive and selective of when she wanted to hang out with us as a group. She mostly wanted to be around her boyfriend from college, who was very sweet and came to visit a few times.

Penny was from Southern Vermont and went to a small college out in the Berkshires. Penny was very loud. You knew if Penny was in the room. I feel guilty describing her this way, but Penny was the stereotypical American. She was loud, extremely obese, and for the most part unaware of others. Penny was the life of the party, and somewhat of the glue that held the group together. However, she also did not know when too much was too much. For example, Penny was a very sexual person and made it very clear when she found someone attractive. I’d see our male friends look uncomfortable and slowly move away from her when she’d had too much to drink, while still wanting to be polite and not hurt her feelings. She even made me feel uncomfortable sometimes. She'd look at me like I was a rare piece of meat and touch my leg in a sexual way. Penny wanted so badly to be a girl boys wanted, to be desired. I felt for her and saw a lot of myself in her. Penny also came from a religious family, she was a preacher’s kid. She talked with me a lot while I lived there about making her decision whether or not to go to theological school, and her conflicting views about having premarital sex.

Mica was from Los Angeles and went to Penn State. It baffled me that people moved to Boston or New England from California. In California the weather was nice, and it seemed like there’s a lot to do. Boston was cold and cloudy and full of not nice people. Mica was sweet about answering all of my questions about why she would ever move here. Mica stated she mostly wanted to go on an adventure and experience something different, and that Boston was an interesting place to be. She also talked about how a lot of her friends from high school were now on the east coast, and it would have been more strange if she had stayed in California. This was very different from my families background. Mica was a very private person, but alluded that she had a very non-emotional relationship with her parents. They were very educated, well meaning, and provided for her. But she felt no discomfort being on the other side of the country from them. In fact, they hardly talked at all when she was living just one town over from them. 

Now I look back and feel more sorry for Mica in her situation than I did then. In 2014, I felt jealous. I was very jealous that she could leave her home and have her own life without any guilt. When I was in Australia and in Boston, my dad would call me and tell me he “doesn’t like that I’m down there”, and he wants me back in Burlington. Mostly he was drunk when he was telling me this, but sometimes he wasn’t. This caused so much confusion for me. For most of my preteen years he hardly looked at me, and didn’t speak to me for a lot of my teenage years. Now, for whatever reason I was made to feel guilty for moving away from him. I listened to my friends talk about moving away from home and being supported in their decisions and I felt like I’d been robbed of that experience. I felt I had an extra burden weighing down on me. Then I felt guilty about being upset because my dad loved me too much. Overall, I just felt hopeless that I’d feel better, and I wanted what Mica had. 

Even though I lived one town over from where I worked, the bus took over an hour to get there. It made a loop in the shopping plaza that added 30 minutes onto what a 30 minute bus ride would have been. My commute wasn’t any shorter, however there was less transferring of buses/trains. I did a lot of reading and knitting on the bus which I enjoyed. At least it was warm.

One man who lived in our house was a refugee and had previous work in the trucking industry. Ali had driven through Vermont and told me how much he hated it. “Vermont was not built for infrastructure”, He would say. I agreed but added that it was beautiful. “It’s not that pretty” he said. I chimed back that there are no billboards, there is a lot to do, etc. Ali did not give in. He was dedicated to hating Vermont. I can understand how driving an 18 wheeler in tight streets and the lack of interstates would be frustrating to a truck driver, but to say it’s not pretty? I wanted him to agree it was a nice place. It mattered to me. Lo laughed with/at me later about this “You were trying to get him to say ONE nice thing about Vermont”. 

We took the commuter train into the city to see our friends less and less. I found that Mica and Penny liked to stay in town to hang out with people they worked with. They were all nice to me, but they were older and I found it hard to find any common ground. Boston was starting to feel more lonely. 

When I moved to Haverhill I noticed how much I missed nature and just how lonely I felt. Whenever our friend group planned something fun we always left the city to go hiking or skiing or snowboarding. We even stayed with my dad in Burlington to go to Jay Peak one time. I had been surrounded by friends who were more like acquaintances. I hadn’t found that one friend that I felt a close connection to. Meeting new people in the real world was really hard. 

One rule the house had was no overnight visitors. Because this was transitional housing for houseless people I think they were worried about other houseless people coming and crashing. I respected this rule except this one time when I had sex with my friend Ben. It was a drunken one night stand. I heard Ali say to another tenant “you could hear everything”. I feel so embarrassed about this. I later found out from Mica that she and Ben had a “thing” previously, before I moved in. I felt so stupid for not knowing. She told me after our trip to Burlington. The whole time we were together I didn’t pick up on this history between them. I couldn't assume it was intentional of her to keep me out of the loop. But I felt betrayed and stupid when I was talking with Mica about having sex with him, and after I was done she told me about their history. She made it really clear that she only told me because she felt like she had to, and like she was slightly annoyed that I had sex with him. It put me back to feeling like I was an immature girl who didn’t know how to handle group dynamics and sexuality. It also made me realize Mica didn’t see me as a friend the way I saw her as one. How was I supposed to know? She obviously doesn't have to tell me anything about herself that she doesn't want, but I wouldn’t have done anything if I thought my friend liked him.

I remember being in the city and chatting with Ben on the T. Ben asked “Wouldn’t it be fun to get a house with a bunch of friends?” I look back at this moment as one of those pivotal moments in life. What would have happened if I said yes? My life would have been completely different. I told Ben that I was thinking about moving back to Vermont and going to grad school. Ben looked disappointed and I ignored him. My anxiety told me I couldn't not live in Vermont. Was I supposed to have a Massachusetts drivers license? Who would I be then? I wish I handled this differently. I should have told him how much he meant to me and what was going on for me emotionally. Instead he just felt rejected and probably more uncertain about what he was going to do or where he would live.

I want to address something the reader has probably been wondering this whole time reading. Why do I have to be friends with the people I live with? Why not find my community elsewhere? That is a great question, and it would also be great if I had the ability to do just this. At this point I was riding and hour on the bus starting at 7am, working 8:00-4:30 sometimes 5:00pm, riding the bus home and getting back at 6/6:30pm. The commute was much longer when I was living in Somerville. All the engergy I had left was to cook dinner, watch a show, repeat the same thing again. Bonding with anyone in the house would have been a bonus, and I felt lucky I knew people going into moving to the city.

I started seeing a therapist in Haverhill mostly to work on managing my anxiety and processing living with my mom. I gained so much from this experience and my past experiences in therapy at UVM I decided I wanted to try being a therapist myself. I wanted to work in schools and be a therapist for kids. I decided to apply for graduate school at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont. The location was important because it was an hour away from my parents, which I felt would be a good distance. The campus was also beautiful. I also wanted the financial security a school counselor’s salary would bring. I felt ready to close this chapter of living in Boston and start fresh where I would set my roots, for real this time.