Choose Your Own Adventure: Logan Airport

Every time I come home from the airport, I manage to take a different route. This is never my intention, and usually I get home without incident, even if I end up taking Storrow Drive to Harvard Square instead of the more direct route to Inman Square.

This time however, at three o'clock in the morning I might add, I veered entirely off course in a way that was terrifying, moreso because I didn't even have my cell phone on me. My usual exit was closed, and instead of taking the next exit, I managed to get off the highway a little bit too early and ended up in Boston's North End. J and I have walked through Charlestown to the North End before, so I figured it would be a snap to get back from there using my bearings. Boy was I wrong.

I had no cell phone and no way of knowing when to get on and off the dozens of highways that might or might not send me back to Logan airport, where at the very least I would know where I was! I kept trying to catch a glimpse of the Boston skyline, so I'd know vaguely which way to go. Long story short, guess who ended up at a Walgreens in Revere, nearly in tears, asking the security guard how to get back to Somerville. I'm just really glad I had decided against driving in skimpy pajamas and had opted for real clothes, instead. His directions weren't really very accurate, uh, AT ALL—the only real insight he provided was that instead of taking a left out of the parking lot like I wanted to, I should take a right. I found signs for Everett/Somerville, and things finally began to look familiar at some point.

This is the route I SHOULD have taken, provided the exit I needed hadn't been closed:


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And in the end, this looks pretty close to the route I ended up taking, instead:


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When Gilmore Girls Mirrors Real Life

"I feel awful—I feel sick...It just sucks, you know, because I graduated today, this was supposed to be a happy day in my life and now when I look back on it I'm just going to think about this whole other thing that happened." --Rory Gilmore

I don't really think about my own graduation anymore, but the penultimate episode of the Gilmore Girls dredged up some pretty awful memories for me. Thank God life has turned out beautifully every since I left college boyfriend's wretched family in my past. The wonderful thing about heartbreak is that it leaves you feeling alive, though. Going through it at the time is no picnic, and I personally learned a lot about depression when I graduated from college, but watching Logan's heartbreak was as beautiful as it was painful. I can imagine Logan telling the story about Rory—the love of his life before he met the actual love of his life—to his grandchildren when he's 80.

I won't be telling any stories about my awful college boyfriend to my grandkids or anything, but I can imagine talking about other boys in my past. And that kind of childhood heartbreak is just the type of maudlin thing that brings a smile to my face.

After all, I wouldn't be here in this wonderful place if life had taken a different turn at any point along the way.