“I hate it when, due to the fleeting nature of human life, I subconsciously mourn my passing youth by assigning a mistaken sense of deep authenticity and significance to a place in which I was simply 24 years old.”
I assign my 24-year-oldness to a short lived apartment I lived in with a friend named Ross in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood, followed quickly by a stint living alone in West Philadelphia in a West Philadelphia home intended primarily for students living off campus from UPenn and Drexel. This was such a formative time in my life, and while it looms large in my imagination, it has such seemingly minimal significance to my life right now (as a father, as a husband, as a fourty-something). However the cultural touchstones (shows, festivals, trips, parties, films, restaurants) I absorbed during that time and the friendships I made, whether I maintained/nurtured them over time are the things that remain embedded in my being. I too, would soon move to Brooklyn and establish/inherit a new identity as a New Yorker, even though I had spent significant amounts of time traveling up to the city and Brooklyn while a Philadelphia resident. In those years I remember sleeping on a lot of couches and taking 3 AM Amtrak trains from Penn Station to 30th Street Station or when I was really low on funds taking a NJ transit train to Trenton followed by a SEPTA train back to 30th Street Station. Anyways, your description of your DC time resonated with me extra specially because I grew up in the area you describe. I saw most of my high school friends spend their formative years back in the DC and Maryland of our late youths, and then gradually I saw people either move on or stay put. Whenever I go back to DC, I sort of wistfully mourn for the way things used to be vs the gentrification that has become so inevitable in the years since in virtually every American city and yes, these are arguably all “better” places to live now, though infinitely more expensive and lacking that grit that we so identified with in our early 20s. Anyways I appreciated this post very much. Thanks.
This is a great piece, Marissa -- you very eloquently capture something about nostalgia and futuricity (and disappointment, and hope) that's very hard to articulate. I certainly couldn't have put it that clearly, but what you've written definitely resonates.
Wow, what a stunning read!! I tend to feel that way when I go to DC although not so much for the version of myself visiting but for the places I know are dear to my friends. It’s a special thing to see a place through someone else’s heart.
I assign my 24-year-oldness to a short lived apartment I lived in with a friend named Ross in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood, followed quickly by a stint living alone in West Philadelphia in a West Philadelphia home intended primarily for students living off campus from UPenn and Drexel. This was such a formative time in my life, and while it looms large in my imagination, it has such seemingly minimal significance to my life right now (as a father, as a husband, as a fourty-something). However the cultural touchstones (shows, festivals, trips, parties, films, restaurants) I absorbed during that time and the friendships I made, whether I maintained/nurtured them over time are the things that remain embedded in my being. I too, would soon move to Brooklyn and establish/inherit a new identity as a New Yorker, even though I had spent significant amounts of time traveling up to the city and Brooklyn while a Philadelphia resident. In those years I remember sleeping on a lot of couches and taking 3 AM Amtrak trains from Penn Station to 30th Street Station or when I was really low on funds taking a NJ transit train to Trenton followed by a SEPTA train back to 30th Street Station. Anyways, your description of your DC time resonated with me extra specially because I grew up in the area you describe. I saw most of my high school friends spend their formative years back in the DC and Maryland of our late youths, and then gradually I saw people either move on or stay put. Whenever I go back to DC, I sort of wistfully mourn for the way things used to be vs the gentrification that has become so inevitable in the years since in virtually every American city and yes, these are arguably all “better” places to live now, though infinitely more expensive and lacking that grit that we so identified with in our early 20s. Anyways I appreciated this post very much. Thanks.
This is a great piece, Marissa -- you very eloquently capture something about nostalgia and futuricity (and disappointment, and hope) that's very hard to articulate. I certainly couldn't have put it that clearly, but what you've written definitely resonates.
Wow, what a stunning read!! I tend to feel that way when I go to DC although not so much for the version of myself visiting but for the places I know are dear to my friends. It’s a special thing to see a place through someone else’s heart.