Don't make me go.

My fantastic boyfriend and I are making plans to move to Boston next year after three years in Providence, and I'm starting to get major anxiety about the whole thing. I've grown to love my small city, and I've gotten used to a place where you can rent a whole apartment in a renovated Victorian house (which has original refurbished floor boards and a vintage tile bathroom) for less than my friends in Boston pay a month for a parking spot a quarter mile from their house. True, we in Providence have to accept the fact that our city is always going to be Boston's hipster little sister who has tons of great ideas and fantastic attributes, but is always short on rent and eats Ramen three nights a week. There's a lot less pressure here to be successful in business, to have a high profile financial job, to get where you're going as fast as you can in the rat race. That's why there are so many well run small businesses that end up turning a big profit here. Unless you go to the mall, you won't see any chain restaurants or chain stores, no GAPs on every block bordered by a Starbuck's on either side. I know people who would rather drink old bongwater than go to a coffee shop without microfoam gracing their lattes and espresso ground to order. Boston gives me anxiety because I'm really not used to being around so many people all the time, people who I've never met. I've been working on not caring what strangers think of me, trying to tell myself not to be silly, to be self-possessed, but put me on the C line during rush hour, and within minutes, I am reduced to an insecure mess, wondering what everyone thinks of my outfit. Because I know for a fucking fact that I'm looking around, judging everyone else's sartorial decisions. I don't do that in Providence, because I basically already know everyone. They've already seen me twice this week, so if I'm haggard and wearing cut off jorts when I go to get coffee in the morning, they have a context to put me in, they know I don't look like I dressed myself with clothes I found in a dumpster behind a homesless shelter. The people on the train in Boston could turn out to be anyone, your future ex-husband, a boss, a friend of a friend, and that's a lot of pressure. You don't have that problem when you ride any of the Rhode Island Transit Authority buses. The bus system here was designed, I assume, by a man who realized that he was supposed present a proposal on it, thirty minutes before the meeting. He scribbled something on the back of a Dunkin Donuts receipt and handed it to his boss (who was probably busy deleting email complaints from people who have seriously maimed themselves because of the potholes that render every drive into a lively experience where you bump along violently while seeing in the rear view mirror that your transmission is now lying in the middle of the road, too tired to take the abuse anymore). I saw better road maintenance in Honduras. So without a second look, the city approved the plan, and set about ruining the lives of anyone who has stepped onto a bus since. The basic idea of the system is that the buses all come down main roads, length-wise across the city, ending up at a central bus terminal called Kennedy Plaza, or more accurately, The Portal To Hell. It seemed convenient until I realized that if I want to go two miles horizontally to get to my Walgreen's, I have to go all the way downtown, board another bus, and go back up the second street, taking 45 minutes when I could have walked it in 20. Yes, I could walk it, but to do so I'd have to go down the street where a man was recently hog-tied and shot execution style in front of his house in broad daylight. I don't live in a bad area, it's just that Providence is so small that you can go from a gentrified family neighborhood into a sinister looking wasteland where transients congregate on street corners, staring at you while you try not to piss yourself. So every time I consider taking the bus somewhere in an attempt to minimize the threat of bodily harm, I spend 30 minutes on the RIPTA trip planner, fact checking like I'm writing my dissertation, only to realize that I'll have to take three buses, walk a half mile, and have a lengthy layover at the bus station, where I can amuse myself by buying some low grade heroin or taking in a deranged religious sermon by someone with less teeth than necessary to navigate the world of solid food. Unlike in Boston, the only time I've felt scrutinized or judged by my fellow bus riders was the time a man (who I really think I saw on an after shot on the “Faces of Meth” website) picked up and pocketed a dollar I had dropped, right in front of me. I demanded the dollar back (It was about the principle!) and he and his lady friend, who was possibly on a day pass from a rehab center, sat three rows behind me and yelled “SKANK! FUCKING SKANK BITCH!” at me the whole ride. Conversely, the last time I lived in Boston, I boarded the D line after a long shift at work, only to realize it was a Red Sox game night. I squeezed myself in, standing on the bottom step in front of the door, wedged behind some legs in cargo shorts, face level with their asses. I was tired, I wanted to go home, so I did not find it particularly amusing when I heard one of them say, “Bro, there's a girl behind you.” The other one responded, “Is she hot?” I looked up to see the first asshat crane his neck to look at me, pause, turn to his friend and say simply, “No.” Now that wouldn't bother me as much, because anyone who thinks white sneakers and cargo shorts is a good look is on my list of “People I Don't Want To Hang Out With, Even If I'm Really Drunk”. But at 18, it stung. But I'm scared it'll happen again when I move back, scared that the confidence I've gained, the confidence that now means I don't think twice about going into public without eyeliner while sporting hair that looks like it was styled by particularly vindictive Hoover, will evaporate as soon as some douche makes a comment . I don't want to lose that, but I guess having an incentive to step up my game a little can't be too bad. I really don't want to stay here another three years and look down to find myself wearing sweatpants and flip flops while perusing the aisles of Stop and Shop. That being said, I'd still take threatening verbal abuse from a crackhead over a crushing blow to my self-esteem any day.