I Think I'll Go to Boston
"Why are you going to Boston?” asked the middle-aged couple sitting on the plane next to me, their Massachusetts accents heavy and bright smiles welcoming.
“Oh, no reason, really!” I answered.
One Direction. I had bought a $300 plane ticket to Boston to see One Direction.
Spending hundreds of dollars to see four British boys/angels may not have been the most financially-conscious decision, but these periodic weekend runaways are my attempts to put distance between myself and the maddening life questions that come along with young adulthood. Because as I wrote in a previous post, I’ve been having a bit of a tiff with my current life’s circumstances. I’ve been bitter against Nashville for reasons unfair to lay against such a fair and lovely city as this one. So I keep running away.
But I come back. I have no choice but to come back. I have responsibilities in Nashville, obligations that keep me tethered to her Tennessee moors. The anchor is heavy and it’s sunk deep in these city limits. For now, I must stay.
In the meantime, though, I buy plane tickets - so many plane tickets - and I run away as a means of escaping my discomfort, this time to Boston and a One Direction concert.
After an opening set from Augustana (high school me had a spiritual moment when hearing “Boston” actually IN Boston) and Icona Pop, One Direction took the stage, and the concert was exactly as you might expect - lots of high-pitched squeals and mass hysteria and Harry Styles being an absolute BABE (I mean, c’mon he used the word “decorum” in a sentence and SWOON AM I RIGHT). It. Was. Perfect.
But now I am back in Nashville and I am once again facing my existential crisis and once again feeling so many feelings, all of which I wish I could make disappear by making a sarcastic parenthetical comment and calling it a day. Jetting off to a beautiful city hundreds of miles away to scream and swoon alongside preteen girls at a boyband concert didn’t cure me of my ever-nagging life questions, didn’t solve my problems, didn’t provide me with some massive life revelation and didn’t make it easier to be content with my newly-settled routine.
However, my little runaway weekend to Boston did allow me a break from Nashville and seeing One Direction allowed me a break from adulthood, and in that brief span of 36 hours, I wasn’t thinking about all the frustrating things I’m usually thinking about. I wasn’t constantly pressuring myself to figure out my future; I wasn’t berating myself for the poor decisions of my past that have left me feeling like a fool. I was simply and fully there, simply and fully living.
So no, running away hasn’t solved my problems or provided answers to the questions I keep asking myself. Running away never will make our lives easier and I know that and we all know that. But running away reminded me that life can be whimsical, can be lighthearted, can be fun - all things I’ve forgotten over this past summer. So I think I'll go to Boston, and Austin, and New Zealand, and Tuscon and wherever else my wandering heart (and entry-level wages) will take me. Who knows, maybe one day coming back to Nashville will feel like it used to feel: like coming home.
