Boston v. New York

I got off the train at Back Bay Thursday night and made the walk down Huntington Ave towards my old home of Symphony Road. The city looked different and the same all at once but I guess that happens when you see something that you haven't seen in a long time.

The streets were almost empty, a far cry from the New York I'm still getting used to where the cars are always moving and the sidewalks are always full. It felt like, and still does, as though my life is taking place in two cities. Friends and a past life in one, a job and a new life I’ve yet to really find in another.

Maybe Boston and New York are always meant to be at odds with each other, and once you live in one it’s difficult to make the transition. Each have their own good and bad sides, like a guy you meet at bar: Boston the adorable sports fan who says hello to you over a pint and lives in a house in Cambridge. New York the financial big shot you meet at a club who buys you a dirty martini and lives in a high rise facing the park.

Both are very different, and while there are all sorts of things that fall in between the obvious distinctions of each wonderful city, I’ve yet to find where I fit in with either of them, but I suppose that will just take time. And I know Boston might be criticized for being small, but sometimes I can't help but think that it’s like what Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei Lee says, “It’s a terrible thing to be lonesome, especially in the middle of a crowd.”