By Tabitha Parent–
My world has always been very small.
I’ve lived in the same house (though it’s sported a few different paint jobs over the years), on the same block (with the relatively recent addition of a much-needed speed bump) in the same 49-square-mile city (hello, Karl the Fog!) since I was born.
I went to a small preschool and met my best friend there right next to our class rabbit’s cage, amidst construction paper and colored pencils. When deemed able enough to make it to recess without wetting myself, I moved just slightly down the block from my preschool to an only slightly larger middle school, where I bonded with a few more pals over what happened when we pressed our pencil erasers into the ancient radiators in the bathroom (spoiler alert: they melt). And for high school? You guessed it. I found myself at a school just slightly larger than my middle school (all-girls this time), making sure to drag my preschool best friend with me so that it felt a little bit smaller.
In all the neighborhoods I spent time in, I knew people. Sal at Arguello Market has watched me go from being pushed around the store in a stroller to showing up on a whim with my credit card whenever I feel the need for a jar of pickles or some gum. I can tell you the names of all my preschool teachers, and I could describe exactly what the woman who worked at See’s Candies on 9th and Clement looked like—and detail to you the sigh she would hide when our pack of middle schoolers showed up after school once again.
I know the men at Mayflower Market on Fillmore Street who would let me and my friends open a four-pack of butter and buy only one stick when we wanted to share a sourdough baguette snack before theatre rehearsal. I never felt the need to branch out, because all of my people were always right there.
So, when I left for college last summer, I felt like my world was crumbling down around me. There was no more stopping by my middle school and saying “hi” to the teachers (who all still teach the same grade, by the way), no more walking down the street from my house for a dark meat turkey sandwich, or running through the park at sunset when I knew specifically which owners and their dogs would be out.
Suddenly, my world had become much bigger. I was terrified.
The number of times I cried in the airports in San Francisco and Boston would have impressed an ocean. When I finally stuffed my five checked bags full to the point of zipper breakage and lugged them on one of the more painful flights of my life back to San Francisco, I could honestly say I had never been happier to share a room with my little sister again.
Going to Boston wasn’t all that bad, though given that I am transferring, it was just bad enough. It did, however, solidify something for me that it seems San Francisco had been trying to teach me for a while, yet I only just got the message now. That is: the more people you take the time to know, the “more” your life will be.
The people I met in Boston this year were different from anyone I’d ever met, although most came from New York, New Jersey, or Massachusetts. I’d never heard of people who weren’t allowed to pump their own gas or preferred baconeggandcheeses over avocado toast. Simply meeting them opened my eyes to the vast uniqueness of the world around me.
Throughout this summer, I’ve had the privilege of attending events like the reading of names for the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a Gay Men’s Chorus Performance, Pride Night at the Opera, and even walking in the San Francisco Pride Parade. I certainly “know” more people than I ever have. I’ve met more people in passing, heard snippets of their conversations, and gained glimpses into the intimate intricacies of their lives than I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing in my lifetime. I’ve heard people talk about what it was like to be gay during the AIDS epidemic, to be a transgender woman in business, or what it’s like being a lesbian motorcyclist, all the while in the company of a hundred or more other complex and special people.
San Francisco has always been a place with an air of acceptance and tolerance; yet, in all my 19 years, I’d never truly tried to seek out the vast uniqueness that exists all around me. Going to Boston taught me to be open to the extraordinary essence of every individual I cross paths with.
I know it will be much harder when I leave again for my sophomore year in a few weeks. Not because I am not excited to go, but because leaving once for the East Coast taught me how special it is to have a place that burns with advocacy and normalizes individualism.
East and West Coasts? Check. Now off to the Midwest. Let’s see what she brings.
Tabitha Parent was born and raised in San Francisco and has just completed her first year of college at Boston College. In the fall, she will be a sophomore at Northwestern University studying journalism at the Medill School of Journalism. In her free time, she enjoys writing poetry and running on trails in the Presidio.
Published on August 25, 2022
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