So I listen to "Better" by Regina Spektor. and I love that line. "Born like sisters to this world." I know that feeling. I wrote it almost verbatim in a poem my freshman year, before I'd heard the song. I know what it's like to be in a new city, a city to make your own, a city to explore, discover, hate, love. A city to change you.
I have such a dichotomous relationship with cities. I love the quiet of the country, and when I was younger I wanted to live in a big old farm house in the middle of nowhere and wrap myself in fields and forests. That changed, and I still can't tell if it's the actually city that I love, or the idea of wrapping myself in a different world. A world that I would reinvent, shift to fit me. Or at least that's what it always seemed like I would do.
I realized after Boston that it was the other way around. I was recreated, I was shifted, and I was fitting the place I chose. In many ways it was a negative change, I was unambitious, and too in love with the city to remember who I was, what I wanted out of my life. But in most ways, I was changed for the better (Mario you can start singing the Wicked song now).
What I remember best was those first few weeks. I was in a city. a CITY. after too long in a small town, I had a whole city to myself. I held on to Sally and she held on to me, and we stumbled and fumbled our way around, laughing too hard and drinking too much. Things changed, but I still love that feeling. It felt like we were born for that time, we were born to walk down Comm Ave. at 4 in the morning, laughing til we were silent and had to stop to catch our breath.
The funny thing was, as much as I changed, as much as I grew and regressed, I was still the same. I know that because Mario is still my best friend. I know that because he could see me when I was there, after bad grades and long nights and tears, he knew who I was before and after any changes, and he still knows me. That's home.
Then came Minneapolis, and my volatile relationship with that city has come to mostly a halt since I've been here, since I've been given a chance to miss it. Not as much as Boston (my first great love), but I miss certain streets, every coffee shop, and I miss being on my own in that city. With my own job, and my own bills to pay, and my own bed to go home to at night.
What I miss the most right now, is Claire, Megan and I. I didn't expect to have that Boston feeling again (Born like sisters to this world), and I got it again. Last summer was like waking up for me. I had just been sleeping, and woke up to home. Good friendships, true friendships, happen so easily. Effortless as breathing. The same thrill as first love. Claire and I obviously go back to the age of 4 inch thick bangs, secret clubhouses and digging in the dirt for worms, but it felt like Megan had been there the whole time too.
I think that's why I keep on coming back to cities, even after I feel like I've been let down, broken up with by them so many times. Because I have this conditioned feeling that when I move to a city, I rediscover that feeling. Born like sisters to this world. Meant to walk together or not at all.
And when I'm here, so far from Minneapolis, from Boston, from any sort of home in the traditional sense, I find myself being reaffirmed of my superstitious belief in cities. Inrid, Stef, Jen and I have done the same thing in Florence. In an enormously different sense, but nonetheless, we've grabbed on to each other and haven't let go. "It's like you've been living together for years" is what Mandy says. We're so vastly different, even Jen and I, despite our 8 year friendship, but we work. We mesh. We get each other, and we get annoyed, frustrated, but in the end, these are the only roommates I would want here. These are the only roommates, friends, I could have here.
Born like sisters to this world.
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