This year, I have found myself feeling strangely sentimental about this city where I live. It’s been three years since I arrived, three years to adjust to city living, and although I am not sure I would call myself a fully converted urbanite, the idea of moving away felt sudden, felt not right. We decided fairly quickly in the year that staying in Boston would be one of a few good choices for us, and the one we felt most passionate about. Why leave our friends? Why leave our neighborhood? Why leave our luxury grocery stores and abundant takeout and our little bit of a life that we have forged here?

Since January, I have dreamed up a number of sappy little missives about leaving Boston. An ode to my walking commute, one to my running paths, my library branch, my school. I’ve penciled it into my blog schedule a number of times, but never found the time to do the writing and the photographing it would require.

But now I don’t have to. Friends and readers, I’ve been keeping secrets, and one of them is that after a semester of planning for worst-case scenarios, my best case scenario is coming true: I am staying in Boston. It feels like a big change, to stay, to wrap my mind around my immediate future, but in the end, I will get to keep my friends, my places, and my city.

More details to come, but for now, I must devote myself to hitting “refresh” on Craigslist. Apartment hunting in this city should be avoided at all costs. Everything in my price range and in my neighborhood is… oh wait, there aren’t any apartments in my price range in my neighborhood. Tough, quick decisions are waiting to be made, but come September 1 at least I know I will still be a T ride away from the place and faces I have come to adore.