Seattle, I miss you.

I met Seattle in the summer of 2009, between my junior and senior years of highschool. I was crammed into a minivan with my parents and two siblings, heading to scout the university my parents were set on my attending. I lived in a tiny town in Montana, with 40 people in my graduating class. While I’d been to Denver and Minneapolis, Seattle was an entirely new beast to me and the second I stepped out of that minivan into the parking lot of our shitty hotel and breathed in that muggy, piney, late July air, I felt like I was home.

I spent four miserable years at that university with my bus rides over the bridge on the weekends being my reprieve, the streets on the waterfront, my sanctuary. I’d walk the UW campus and pretend I was a normal student and not an interloper for a few hours. I became a regular at a handful of local businesses. I tried my first croissant, my first sushi, and my first pad Thai in my wanderings. Back then, I could walk into a coffee shop and drink endless drip coffee while playing on my laptop, late into the night.

It was a lonely time for me, but the city made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

I got married between my junior and senior years of college – a normal event for women at my school – and my (now ex) husband made us move back to Montana after I graduated.

I often wonder what my life would’ve been like if I’d allowed myself to embrace it rather than submit to the powers that had been. I’ve visited a handful of times since then and there have been tears every time I’ve ripped myself away.

I keep saying that someday, I’ll come back permanently, but as I get older, that dream seems further and further away.

Seattle, I miss you.