Leaving Boston and Clicking Our Heels Together Three Times

Life is filled with cycles, circles, and side-trips. Some thrill, some enlighten, and some just come into your life long enough to make the needed impression and move on. All are part of the great adventure that is our lives.Four years ago April and I took one of those side-trips by moving to Boston. Literally, a few months before our arrival, Boston was not on our radar at all.April was recruited here and accepted the job. Within two months, April, our black lab Mia, and I were on the road headed for Boston. Our time in New England has been extraordinary. We've often commented on how we still feel like we're on vacation. This is truly one of the GREAT cities of the world. There's so much culture, history, and there's an ocean. It's a place of poets and presidents; as much the birthplace of our nation as Philadelphia.We got to experience the Boston Pops July 4th Concert twice. We've endured massive winter Nor'easters and blissfully soaked in fall colors found nowhere else on Earth. Coming from Kansas, we were surprised to learn that a heatwave is officially three days in a row above 90 degrees. We became old hands at the Mass Pike and the T. We experienced tall ships and and learned to sing "Sweet Caroline" at Sox games like the locals. We enjoyed Nantucket, The Vineyard, and The Cape. We walked Harvard Yard and the deck of the USS Constitution. We built the house we always wanted.Yet, earlier this year we noticed a sea change in our thinking. When we moved here, only one of our two grown children was married and we had no grandkids. Now both are married. We have two grandkids and a third on the way. Suddenly, 1500 miles away felt like a million.When we moved here, we had no expectation of how long we'd stay. We started talking about the possibility of moving back the second year. We also discussed living here for 20 and being the cool grandparents that our grandchildren would come to Boston to visit in the summers.Alas, the gravity of family was too much and we decided to move back to Kansas. Our house spent three months on the market. Yesterday we accepted an offer and, barring hiccups, we now have an expiration date on this little adventure. By the end of June and four years to the week since we arrived, we'll reverse course and traverse I-90 on a westerly heading.Leaving Boston is bittersweet. This place got inside of us. It will never be just another place on the map again. Thankfully, April's new job - still based here in Boston - will probably give us the opportunity to come back and visit. Perhaps, we'll still bring our grandkids here when they're old enough and show them the super-cool city where grandma and grandpa used to live.The seven-week countdown is on. Soon we'll be clicking our heels together three times and waking up in a Kansas bed. The tree-lined, windy roads of New England will be replaced by the wide-open spaces and skies of Kansas.Yes! Life is filled with cycles, circles, and side-trips. Thanks goodness for this one! It's been truly wicked!Ray