a Love Letter to Boston

Is it possible to have grown up in a city without ever having lived there?
I dreamt of Boston as a kid; I'd to own a narrow brick home, Federalist style, filled with books and hope and a butler. And just when the loss of childhood logic revealed that "not all residents live like the mother from the 1961 Parent Trap", my family vacationed there. It was one of our good ones. We went on a duck tour, and my brother got to drive the boat, and the captain didn't even mind he was too young. Later, my 8th grade class explored historical sites like the Freedom Trail—our alternative to the traditional D.C. trip, since 9/11 had just happened. It wasn't long before I'd decide to go to college in Boston. I toured its universities more than once; the first time with my mom, my sister, her best friend and son. I told Chrissie of a memory I have from then: of my mom sitting next to my Aunt Donna on the T, singing some song from the '80s louder than any one should on public transportation; my sister and I laughing; Ryan inching away. And another time with the college prep summer program I'd begged by parents to send me to. I watched the Mississippi boy I'd became infatuated with marvel at hiking gear in Harvard Square. I considered what my future might look like. And though I was not eventually offered a spot in BC's Class of 2010, I spent a secret wonderful weekend nearby with the boy I would soon fall in love as an undergrad at Syracuse University. Once graduated, heart broken, I'd escape from the painful what-should-be that draped the New York air and remember all that I was and had been. I had friends who lived there then. In fact, I still do.
I'd mostly forgotten about all of it, until this past weekend, visting Chrissie. She just moved to Boston for grad school. We walked through nearly every neighborhood and drank too much wine and indulged in all the teary heart-to-hearts. It was perfect.