AHHHH!!! Summit is THIS WEEKENNNNND!!!! This Weds we are at Summit Ave. in Brookline @ Corey Hill Outlook. This FRIDAY we are at Harvard Stadium in Allston. This morning we were on Nickerson Field doing a “World Tour” of all 41 November Project cities. It was a perfect start to “Summit Week” which brings humans from every single one of those cities–our extended family if you will–to town.
Today’s blog comes to us from a core of the core. She’s been coming for 3+ years, and above anything else gets what this crazy mob is all about. She gets the weird, the fierce, the community, the greater NP family. All of it. We’ll miss her when she moves, but we know the 5280 will take care of her… Without further adieu, Molly Muz!
Home. The first definition that populates when you type “home definition” into Google is “the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” Over the past 3.5 years, I became a family member of November Project, so now my home is in 41 cities and growing, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Let’s back up a minute….or rather, let’s back up to 2013. Like so many others, I was hugely impacted by the marathon bombings. I lived 1000 feet away from where the bombs went off. I was kicked out of my apartment for two days after, but luckily my college roommate was visiting me in Boston, and I had friends who took us in (thanks Leigh and Mike!). That same week, I realized that I was in a completely toxic relationship and had to cut off all communication, and lose a person about whom I cared deeply. The following months, I dreaded walking to work because my walk was a constant reminder of what had happened in April. That fall, I decided to move to Readville to a building where I had friends and a mini-community, in hopes that a change would be good for me. Even with that, I wanted to leave Boston. I looked into moving to DC to be closer to my mom and sisters, but the opportunity I wanted wasn’t available at the time. I took to the occasional yoga class to help me find some sort of sense of calm, my favorite being Goldie’s hip hop yoga class. One of the girls sitting next to me mentioned November Project and how Goldie is a badass and can actually run up all of the stairs (at the time, I had never been to Harvard stadium, and had no appreciation for what this really meant).
After yoga, I took to the internets, and searched everything NP. The hype videos. The blogs. The HUGS. If you haven’t met me, you should know this: I LOVE a good hug. I give my Aunt Mary all of the credit for this. The woman is only 4 foot something, and yet hugs you like grizzly bear. It’s phenomenal. On October 21, 2013, I went to my first workout. It was a destination deck at BU. I felt comfortable #justshowingup there because I had gone to grad school there, and it was familiar territory. I remember watching as folks ran in the dark to get there, the first bounce, the triple decker plank that I was so impressed by. I was in awe that something like this existed. I wasn’t much of a runner at the time, so this was all new territory for me. But I showed up again on Wednesday. And again on Friday. That Friday, Brian Garland had his dog Egor with him. As I tried to introduce myself to the dog, Brian introduced himself to me, and taught me that we hug, we don’t shake hands. And introduced me to a handful of his friends. And that was it – I had family there.
The following years, I had something that kept me in Boston. Something that made me fall back in love with this city. It filled the void that I was so desperately searching to fill, yet I hadn’t the slightest clue what I was looking for at the time. Thanks to November Project, I now have years’ worth of incredible experiences, that prior to joining NP, I couldn’t have fathomed – doing somersaults through a slushy field in Fenway, wiping out on the ice in front of Bojan, going from nineteen sections to a century club, running half marathons and trail relays, traveling with a plane full of friends to foreign lands (ok, it was to Canada, but sounded way more adventurous that way), and meeting this incredibly diverse group of students and musicians and scientists who I would never otherwise have the great fortune of getting to know in my day-to-day office life.
However, despite loving Boston again, I realized it’s not my forever place. After making a decision on a whim, followed by a lot of discussions with family, friends and coworkers, and a pro/con list (I know, the order I do things is completely ass backwards), I finalized a plan to move to Denver as of the end of July. But here’s the BEST part – I already have family there! And yes, my step-brother lives there, but I have much more than that. I have a tribe who has already welcomed me with open arms, who is oddly great at ultra-running from what I hear (so who knows, maybe I’ll actually run a marathon?), and who has already made Denver feel like home.
My favorite part about November Project is that it’s not just in Boston. It’s global (#worldtakeover is real). November Project is my family, so I have a home wherever NP is, and sometimes even where NP isn’t yet, but will be eventually, as more people discover #thisshitisgood. Thank you NP Boston for being my home and my family for the past 3.5 years. Thank you to every single member of November Project for being my family, and for giving me a home, no matter where I end up, no matter how often I show up. I’m glad you’re here.
