Sebastian White :: Boston: Love it or leave it

ESSAYS

Boston: Love It or Leave It

By Sebastian White | February 2005

Living in Boston can sometimes feels like a 'love it or leave it' proposition to twenty-somethings like me. There's a constant sense that Bostonians have one eye on their enviable life here while the other casts furtive glances toward the possibility of a better or more exciting future elsewhere, especially on days like today when the mercury – and our city’s spirits – drop ever lower.

Between 2003 and 2004, Massachusetts was the only state in the nation to actually lose residents, as the young and upwardly mobile left in a slow, but significant, trickle. My own friends have been leaving in a constant stream, like refugees fleeing for more glamour and geld – three to New York and two to San Francisco last year alone.

I often think wistfully about joining them – in soothing California, of course – never in relentless New York, since my principal objection to Boston is largely climatic. Over three years of living here, I’ve been awed by the place and its Victorian aesthetic, by its diversity of experiences and its effortless ability to captivate my senses.

Though my life here often feels dreamlike, there’s still something about Boston that tugs at me, that leaves me bewildered, wondering, and wishing for more. Perhaps it is my age, but I sense my confusion, in large part, also stems from an inability to put my finger on the very pulse of this changing city’s personality.

Friends who have bid Boston adieu, often under the guise of the region’s flagging economy and the promise of a new job elsewhere, have later said they left Boston with that same hanging emotion, unable to reconcile their experiences here with any sort of real coherence.

What the guidebooks and travel tomes don’t mention is that in this town, at least among a certain footloose segment of the population, there is a present but carefully hushed perception that perhaps, deep down, Boston just isn't good enough.

I don’t necessarily agree with such apprehension, but that sense of being conflicted about our place in this nation – exacerbated by our liberal leanings and protracted rivalry with New York – is increasingly reflected in Boston's civic character, which vacillates between unabashed self-confidence and almost embarrassing insecurity.

Those are fighting words in such a fiercely independent city, the hub of a region no longer the center of the universe. To claim that a place with such unrivaled resources, and such depth of history, can be inferior to any place is a tough sell on the fashionable streets of Beacon Hill and Back Bay. But it is precisely that perception that seems to be pulling young Bostonians toward bigger cities on both coasts.

I often wonder if it is a product of youth or the insatiability of our time that leads so many of us to ponder the merits but fixate on the flaws of life in New England’s biggest city. After being told for so long that we live in one of the most desirable places in the nation, I think we tend to forget it probably doesn’t get much better than this.

Still, in our competitive triumvirate of exorbitantly priced cities, New York always shines brighter, and San Francisco always seems more seductive. But are they really better or more civilized places? Do they really live up to the idealized opinions we as young people have of them?

Whatever the reasons and arguments people make with themselves for leaving, I’ve never gotten used to this city’s revolving door, which makes relationships here sometimes seem too abbreviated or too late. At the very moment one meets some captivating and interesting new character, the proverbial moving van rolls up (quintessentially double parked, of course), and they’re gone.

That weighs on us, on whatever level.

I'm not sure I've met a single optimist in nearly three years of living here. Perhaps it is the harshness of our climate, the bleakness of our winters, which leads to this tamping down of our spirits. Maybe it is the growing recognition among my peers, the young people from away who immigrate here for college and a first job, that Boston feels stuck in a rut, a place that despite its grand illusions and its proud progressive tradition, is still "a city where the old ways are too often considered the best ways," as one Globe columnist put it recently.

It's not just that Boston sometimes feels like a constant work in progress that just doesn't progress – I don't even need to mention the Big Dig – but that life here feels awfully sluggish sometimes. With one foot planted firmly in America's revolutionary past and one wagging tentatively in its high-tech, global future, Boston appears uncertain whether to propel itself forward or continue looking longingly toward the security of the past.

I think we’ve all felt this way, a bit glum about our prospects here on the crisp shores of Massachusetts Bay – and then the clouds part and there are the glorious days on the esplanade, the world-class exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts and the rapturous afternoons at the symphony, not to mention the whole slew of interesting shops and restaurants springing up in the city’s lively downtown neighborhoods to remind us why we live here.

As soon as we think we’ve reached a new low, just as we’re on the cusp of packing our bags and getting out, something irresistible – and indescribable – about this old city draws us back in.

Life in Boston, to paraphrase an old quote, is a little like being in a certain kind of abusive relationship. You're always thinking of leaving but the good times are unparalleled. And the make-up sex is sublime. In the end, you're hostage to love.