Learning, Loving, and Leaving Boston

I’ve never been that great at goodbyes. I think that is because most of the time I’ve had to say goodbye, I also have had some regret. In the past I remember staring at my packed up dorm room, or looking at my last college apartment, feeling like “Damn, I should have made more of this experience.” Through every single goodbye I remember thinking, “I should have spent more time with “x” when I had the chance, or I should have told “y” how much they meant to me. I should have tried “this,” I should have done “that.”

For the first time in my life, as this last chapter ends, I don’t feel that way. These last five years I have pushed myself to experience everything this city has had to offer me. Or maybe, it was the city that pushed me. And somehow, while I don’t have regret I do have this really deep feeling of belonging that has made it even harder to say goodbye. Just like that, five years just came and went, and I’m such a different person with such a different life, and such a different perspective than when I first landed here.

To be honest with you, I am really not sure what drove me to move here. I was applying to research programs, and knew that programs were pretty competitive and I didn’t have the luxury of being super picky — my only criteria was that it was a reputable program that was located in a major city, which in itself is pretty picky for academia. My first offer was in Boston, and it checked all the boxes. Because of the insane number of blizzards in the winter of 2015, my onsites kept getting canceled so I had to accept the job without even seeing the place. I don’t even know if I could have pointed Boston out to you on a map — the first time I checked I was like “wait its ALLLLL the way up there?!” Somehow that didn’t even phase me back then, I was more excited about finally exploring outside of North Carolina and becoming a city girl. Boston was going to be my new home come June. To be honest, it was uncharacteristic of me to just take a risk, and try something so new. And ironically, that would basically sum up my experience one decision after the next in Boston — uncharacteristically pushing my comfort zone by taking risks and trying new things.

Rishi helped move me in (as he has done for me with EVERY single apartment — grateful for you), and I still remember the shocking moment of us seeing my first apartment. My room was probably just one foot wider than a full size mattress. That first week he was here, we explored everything. We went to Harvard, Copley Library, the Gardens, tons of new restaurants, it was a BLAST. Boston is absolutely beautiful. The modern cityscape blended with the older rustic looking buildings all sitting on some of the most historic land and water in the country is visually breathtaking. I couldn’t believe that this place was going to be my HOME. You soon learn that it’s not your shoebox size apartment that is your home when you live in the city, it’s the city itself. That summer, I ate dinner outside in the Commons pretty much every day. I ran along the water in the North End, I walked home from the grocery store with my hands full of new foods, you just get so integrated with the actual city itself, that the small spaces of your actual home don’t really matter so much.

Soon after Rishi left I met up with Psant for the very first time (we had only ever texted back and forth before), days before I started my first job. We met up at this quirky boardgame bar off the Commons, and walked to the Seaport after that where we took pictures of the beautiful skyline at sunset with my new DSLR. 4 years later he would propose right at that spot in the Seaport, and we’d celebrate with our friends at the Boardgame bar where we first met. We probably talked nonstop for 5 hours that evening about everything and anything under the sun, and within a week I was so glad to have made my first friend in Boston.

I started my job, and that’s when I was confronted with some of my first REAL challenges. Academia is tough. The pay is shit, the hours are long, and the egos are out the roof. It takes a long time to see the fruits of your labor, and despite all the work you put in, you may also never get credit for what you do. Resources were tight in my lab and as a result my onboarding and mentorship were nonexistent, or limited at best. I was working two other side jobs to make ends meet to pay for my closet sized apartment. I felt alone, burned out, and unsure if this was a path that was giving me meaning. I had no issue in college putting in the hours, it wasn’t that. It was the fact that I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t motivated by the problems I was solving, or the solutions I was expected to create. I wasn’t content with discovering new information, I wanted to build things that had more immediate and tangible impact.

I also started to get pretty lonely. When I was in my rhythm in Boston, I don’t think I noticed it, but I have a distinct memory of the first time I came home to visit North Carolina. I had had another shitty draining day at work, was totally unsure of the direction I wanted to take my life in, and took a late night flight home to visit my friends and family that weekend. Krina and Sonali surprised me at the airport and brought Red Delicious Apples — my favorite kind of apples in NC that I complained didn’t taste nearly the same in Boston. When I saw the apples and I saw my friends that knew me and loved me, suddenly I just broke. I just started sobbing, I’m not even sure why but I think I just realized how lonely I felt in Boston compared to the strong community I had left behind in NC. Sure, there was the charm and the excitement of the new city, but who in Boston even knew that Red Delicious was my favorite kind of apple? Who loved me enough to come surprise me late at night at the airport in Boston?

This was pretty much how the first year went. I loved living in the city, and didn’t necessarily want to move back home, but every time I went home, it was really hard for me to get on the plane and come back. I really really missed my friends from home. I struggled to make new friends in Boston because I compared every new friend I met to the deep relationships I had from back home, and nothing felt “the same.” It frustrated me.

Being in Boston, and dating Psant, I was exposed to the tech industry for really the first time. I definitely couldn’t have explained what “Silicon Valley” was about before Boston. I couldn’t have told you what Venture Capital was, or what the startup industry is like. The more I heard about it, the more I knew that I had to be a part of it. Having had a shitty experience as an employee at my current company, I was fascinated by the resources tech companies provide their employees to both attract, grow, and retain their talent. I saw how People Operations teams were so involved and integrated in the ways some of these startup and large companies built their strategic roadmaps. I was drawn to joining something that was small, and being a critical part of its growth. I was also excited about the prospect of building a plane while I was flying it — giving me the opportunity to be so innovative, so non-traditional, so “disruptive,” as they like to call it in tech. I made the transition into People Ops and finding this passion has been everything. Building programs to support learning and development, diversity, employee engagement is such meaningful work to me. The best part of my job is that I am so integrated in the business — in a given day I have meetings with members of the executive team, line managers, and entry level employees who may have just joined us. The research experience has shown its value in the tremendously data driven approach that modern people ops teams take, especially when you want to build for scale. I’ve learned so much about a business — the things that drive sales, marketing, customer adoption, and design. It is so exciting to be a part of the company where your thoughts and your input literally affect the strategic direction at the company. It’s empowering to have a say, and actually be relied upon for those things. And the learnings I have gotten from the larger tech community that I am now apart of, has been invaluable. So professionally, things started to turn around. Psant and I worked in the same field so we learned a lot from each other. I have him to thank entirely for helping me find what drives me.

And then, there was my first winter. No matter how much I prepared for it, it’s hard to understand what people mean by a New England Winter until you experience it first hand. It’s not the cold that is the hardest, it’s the darkness. Boston winters make you feel more human than anything else. To push through biting cold, to motivate yourself through the darkest days, you realize how vulnerable and fragile we really are. I never really minded them as much as Psant, but there is a seasonal depression the city goes through that is an interesting experience. The winters are LONG. I think you develop a new gratitude for nice days. I spend every day in the summer outside, I never take a nice day for granted, and coming from North Carolina that was a new thing for me.

All that to say, you have to be tough to live here — the people here are tough. So tough, that sometimes they aren’t the nicest — but it’s a very motivated, driven group of people. Sometimes it feels like everyone here goes to Harvard, or MIT, is in some medical residency program, or works at some big-deal company. Everyone has some kind of mission that they’re here to deliver on, and that motivation is inspiring.

My experience living in the city reached next level heights (literally), when Psant and I moved in together. Dating your best friend is amazing, living with them, is even better. Suddenly I also had a real home to come home to — a beautiful spot that we took such care in designing ourselves from the furniture, to the walls we painted, to personal touches that made it feel so special. Rather than wait for the days that I could explore the city with my best friend, every day was an adventure. We cooked together inside, or tried the new trendy spot in the city. We walked in the commons daily, we discovered this new love of comedy by living so close to the Wilbur which invites some of the best comedians in the world. I’ve been privileged enough to have many many nights of tear inducing laughter from some remarkable comedians, both household names and up and coming talent. Hearing about their perspectives on the world was so fascinating.

Around the same time we moved in together, we met what eventually would become our “Boston Crew.” These would become some of the most special people in our lives as corny as that sounds. None of us really knew each other before we landed in Boston but we all had some kind of common thread or tie that would bring us together in this city. At first we just kind of hung out to hang out — we’d go to restaurants and chat, and genuinely have a great time. But soon, we’d start to learn so much more about each other — stuff from what we were struggling with at work all the way to when one of them was going to propose to the other! There was no filter because we truly just felt like a family — we were there for each others big moments — the birthdays, the promotions, the proposals, the weddings. And we were also there for the failures, the losses, and the dark days. There were many challenges that I experienced through my time here, particularly a number of health and family issues. But having the support system to get through those things together was really something. We went through a lot of the “becoming an adult” things together, and that’s what makes this group so special. Of all the things I am sad to leave behind in Boston, my Boston Crew I will miss you guys the most.

It also meant a lot to me that my friends and family visited us here, so many times. Although we had friends, and a life, and all of these things in Boston, I always really missed everyone else — the phone conversations, and learning to stay in touch was a new skill I developed, but the facetime is irreplaceable. My friends visited all the time, and work also brought a lot of my friends into the city pretty frequently. I was always excited to show them everything this place had to offer, with the comfort of being with someone that had known me for so many years. A lot of my best memories in Boston are from these visits that my friends and family took the time to make.

If there is one thing that I have taken from these past five years, it is to push yourself and make the most of the experiences that you’re thrown into. It’s a lot harder to make friends, discover new passions of yours, or learn from your failures when you sit in the confines of your safe space. I often think about how different my life would be if I hadn’t taken the leap to move here, or if I hadn’t taken the risk of switching into a fairly unknown field, or if I hadn’t gotten to know the people I have met and now love so dearly. I have learned how important it is to be more present — as someone that is always planning for the future — for the first time, I was a lot more present, and allowed myself to enjoy and experience what was right in front of me. Although I will miss this place more than any other home I know, my experiences here are so integrated into my life and who I am. I needed to write this down because I never want to forget how this city made me feel, and what I had to do to allow myself to experience these things. Boston has become my new safe space, so I’m ready to push myself towards a new exciting challenge, this time with my best friend by my side. I am ready to jump into the next chapter on the other side of the country and see what comes with it!