I started last night to write a post about Nora’s birthday party on Saturday. But there are other things on mind at the moment. One thing, actually.

I was not born in Boston. I was not raised there. But for 10-plus years, Boston and its inner suburbs was home, and they were the best years of my life. I met too many friends, I had too many great experiences, for it to be otherwise. Above all, I met my wife there. This life I have in 2013 — this family, these children, all of it — is a direct result of my decision in the spring of 1998 to pack up everything I owned into a Penske van, hook my car up to the back, and make the trek from idyllic little Lemoyne, PA to Boston.

I was not unfamiliar with the city on my arrival. For just about every summer of my childhood, elementary school on up, summer included a trip to Boston. The genesis of these trips was always the Red Sox. Dad’s life as a sports fan begins and ends with those Sox. He was bit by the bug in the pennant-winning summer of 1946, and his sons stood no chance but to be bitten by that same bug. With so many annual trips under my belt, it seemed only natural in early 1998, as I was applying for admission to graduate school, that my eyes turned to Boston University, which offered a strong program in broadcasting. My admission being secured that spring, the next decision was an easy one, and in late August, I was off.

I was fortunate in two ways when I moved to Boston. First, while I was moving to an entirely new city, I was at least moving to a city where I had friends. Pat, Pete, and Pat, acquaintances from my days with Proteen Records* lived in Boston, and through them I was able to join a group of extended friends that I eventually came to regard as some of the best I’ve ever known. Secondly, as an incoming member of a new class of students, I was instantly immersed with a collection of friends who were as new to the city as I was. It was the best of both worlds, and very necessary to my well-being, as it became quickly apparent that my many previous visits to Boston left me with approximately zero understanding of the city beyond its many tourist attractions.

(*Proteen Records and its history will have to wait for another post.)

I’m not going to even attempt to wrap up 10 years and four months of my life in a blog post. I know this is going to wind up a bit of a disjointed mess when I click publish. But today’s tragedy leaves me feeling ill. I’m not even sure what I’m hoping to accomplish by writing about it, or about Boston. There’s no point in trying to make sense of it all when there is no sense to be made. Whether this turns out to be an act of international terrorism, or domestic terrorism, or the work of a singular and severely fucked up human being will alter nothing from where I sit.

To put it simply, I love that city. I love its people, its  little neighborhoods, its maze of one-way streets, the anarchy of its grid, the dilapidated nature of its mass transit system, its fundamentally quirky mix of Puritan aesthetics (no booze on Sundays!) and liberal progressive ideology. As I type, Carolyn reminds me of the time we had lunch at Atlantic Fish Market, which is practically today’s Ground Zero.

As I type, no fewer than 134 people are in various stages of critical care. A two-year old boy is in ICU with head trauma. An eight-year old child is dead. As I type, families grieve.

Last August, on a visit back to Boston, Carolyn and I stood together on the beach at Winthrop, talking about the future. It was the end of a lovely week visiting all of our lovely friends, and one thing became startlingly clear to both of us. We felt like we were home.

Someday, I hope to call it home again.