21 Comments
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Wen Wang's avatar

Chris - thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing your entire journey with us. You are so insightful and I wish I had a fraction of your wisdom. I can completely relate - my circumstances are different but I always feel that I haven’t achieved my full potential and I would be happier if I can accomplish this and that goal. But you’re right. Wishing my circumstances were different and anticipating my future joy is actually stealing my present joy!!! I need to change my mindset. Thank you for this reframing!

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Wen! I appreciate your comment.

Jackie (she/her)'s avatar

This is just so good. As someone who has their own Boston, I always seem to be missing and wishing I lived there again. I have to constantly remind myself that even when I was there, I was still wasting a lot of my life wishing for other things. I don’t want to waste any more of my life wishing myself out of the present. It’s all we have, even if it doesn’t look like how we hoped or thought it would. I’m four years into “temporarily” living with my parents too 😂

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Jackie! We're fortunate to have great roommates at least.

Christine Vaughan Davies's avatar

I enjoy reading more of your story through your connection to a place. I've lived in Philly and NYC and haven't made my way up to Boston much, but appreciated your love of that city. Also no clue what that peacock dream meant! 🤣

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Christine! I love Philly. New York is great too but a bit too big for me. Maybe in another life I'd live there.

The peacock dream I think was because I was watching NBC shortly before. Someone tried to go super deep and interpret it and I was like "I was watching NBC, the lawnmower is in our yard, and I am on my laptop. Not much more than that."

Jane Harrison's avatar

Such a moving piece Chris. I wonder if we all have a ‘Boston’? I have similar feelings about Oxford. And I agree that finding joy in the present is the key to it all 😊

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Jane! I think we all have our Boston for sure, even if it's not a city - a previous nostalgic time.

Elizabeth Dana Yoffe's avatar

This moved me so much. What a beautifully written, open and vulnerable piece. I hear you, Chris. I’m from that very city and understand just how much it can get into your soul. Thinking of you! 💫

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Elizabeth! I didn't realize you were a Bostonian!!

Elizabeth Dana Yoffe's avatar

Yup! Born and bred… 😸

Chris Anselmo's avatar

I knew we were friends for a reason.

David Enker's avatar

Hi Chris, just listened (AI function 👍🏼) to your story while being on a "low" of Parkinson's, which resembles your condition on a couple of fronts although it's incomparable in many others. It's similar in a way that increasingly I have no strength or energy and also struggle(d) with anxiety and depression (precursors to PD).

But I can salute you in the way that the both of us are finding strength through adversity - as difficult and paradoxical as it may be.

All the best from Haarlem (Holland), David.

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks for your comment, David. I am wishing you all the best!

Winston C-S's avatar

This was a powerful piece of writing. Thank you for sharing it with all of us <3

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Winston :)

Lori MacGregor's avatar

Beautiful writing, and as a Boston native, I always love discovering someone else’s appreciation for the city.

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Lori!

Laura's avatar

This one stuck home for me. I have a strange relationship with Boston and my son’s rare disease. The way you capture this tug into the past is so personal and relatable.

Chris Anselmo's avatar

Thanks Laura!