The cat is out of the bag- I’m leaving Minnesota.
At the end of September, I will be moving to the Boston area to join my partner, who has been living and working there for over a year.
Moving in the middle of a pandemic is… probably one of the dumber decisions I’ve made while living in MN. Dumber than walking to my home in Whittier from Cedar Riverside at midnight in January (which I’ve done), attending Open Streets without sunscreen (also something I’ve done), or writing what I honestly thought of a friend’s show in a Fringe Festival review (I’m so sorry).
Yes, this move is going to be much more complicated and expensive than I initially anticipated. I won’t actually be able to say goodbye to most of the people and places I love. I don’t have a job lined up. Theatres and museums won’t be hiring me, or anyone, anytime soon. I know very few people in Boston. I won’t have a car. I don’t have family in the area, other than my partner. I’m moving into a smaller apartment, and the rent is higher than my place in MN. Really, the whole scenario sound like the painful plot to a romantic comedy starring Kristen Wigg.
I’m usually a person with a plan. Each step is calculated, mapped, and analyzed before I take it. So this move is the closest thing to a free fall I’ve ever done and I’m thrilled. I don’t know where I’m going to land but I’m excited for the forced freedom to find out!
Back in January, when I decided that I would leave in the fall, I made a bucket list of things to do before leaving Minnesota. Of course, none of them happened. So, instead I made a retroactive bucket list, things I’m so glad I did over the last seven years.
- Waking up at 4am, driving to work in Roseville, then to an internship in North East, sprinting to a babysitting gig back in Roseville, then driving to another internship in Seward, getting home at 11pm, and repeating the process again the next day.
- Eating burgers between Fringe Festival shows.
- Shivering in small rehearsal spaces and
theatres all over the city as I watched dedicated artists tell brand new stories
- Attending Open Streets, The Red Hot Art Festival, the MCAD art sale, Pride, Art-A-Whirl, and every other Minneapolis festival I could.
- Eating breakfast at the State Fair before anyone else is there
- Driving to every corner of MN with Bakken Museum programs.
- Sitting on a restaurant patio on the first nice day in May
- Crashing UMN Sociology events
- Working in the sunny 2nd room of my apartment at Franklin and 3rd (until we discovered it was infested with many, many pests).
- Teaching at over 100 schools around the metro area and meeting students from just about every neighborhood
- Serving as an election judge in multiple elections
- Waiting for the bus on one of the coldest days in history, because even though every business and school closed for three days, I still had to open the coffee shop.
- Serving as the Associate Artistic Director of Collective Unconscious Performance
- Learning to love cooking
- Walking around Lake of the Isles at Sunset
And most of all, I’ll miss the people who made these memories special.
Minnesota, thank you for welcoming this Wisconsin girl. I’ll miss you.
Sofia