You ever take a bus to Boston at 1 AM and somehow come back a changed person? No? Just me? Okay. Buckle up.

After deciding I was going to go to Boston, I as I always do made my homegirls tag along on the journey, because you know, power in numbers. So we booked a last minute Greyhound from NYC to Boston, and lemme just say, it was giving Survivor: Midtown Edition. The drama? Immediate. The chaos? Delicious. Imagine people arguing over $5 assigned seats like it was a property dispute on Judge Judy. Then there’s me, power walking through the subway tunnels at midnight, my overstuffed duffle bag in one hand and spiritual baggage in the other, like some kind of emotionally turbulent raccoon.

We board the bus and I immediately start laughing, because I was really doing it on a bus to Boston after shooting a whole commercial for a designer brand. The range I have will be studied by my children’s children one day.

So after four hours, and laughing for a good hour of the four, we made it. And the second I stepped into Boston, I felt like the world was my oyster. Spoiler: that oyster had food poisoning.

I wake up Day One, voice basically gone, nose clogged, looking and sounding like I was auditioning to be the fourth Sanderson sister. Still, we rally. We hit brunch. I decided I’m going to get drunk, for I am invincible when I have liquor courage. And I was already on a high off rediscovering myself, so I order a drink flight and a breakfast burrito so big it could qualify for TSA screening.

Me, Mimi, and Lupita are deep in convo about my emo Sim™. You know, the digital man I accidentally got emotionally invested in, who has the personality of a wet sock and the audacity of a Gemini off their meds. We’re cracking jokes, psychoanalyzing, and drop kicking my dignity across the brunch table when plot twist we drag the server into it. She’s laughing like we just pitched her an HBO pilot. We’re giving her backstory, character arc, motivation. This was SimLit Live.

Back at Mimi’s, we decide to draft a text to said emo Sim. Like true queens, we pass the phone around like it’s a talking stick in group therapy. One by one, we try our hand at emotionally mature communication.

Y’all.

When I say this Sim was disrespectful? Like… new levels of unbothered. The kind of disrespect that makes you physically recoil. We all took turns reading what was said. Lupita was so mad she had to walk away. Mimi was like, “TF? Is he serious? He cannot be serious WTF.” Then there was me, like, “There is no way this MF just embarrassed me in front of my friends like this.” Like anybody but him. ‘Cause ain’t no damn way. But it was definitely me, and the disrespect was definitely there in 4K. In English.

We sat that phone down like it was cursed and just stared at it in silence. Honestly, the phone needed sage.

We decided to cleanse our palate with vibes and vibes only, so we hit Fenway Park. The energy? So cute. It’s no Citi Field, but it had that classic charm. I was out here sipping themed cocktails, taking pictures like I was on a field trip, and giving the Fenway faithful lore about my Sim like it was a TED Talk no one asked for. Starting it with, “Now before I start, please make sure you are hearing what I am saying,” and the more I talked, the more the look of disgust spawned on their faces.

I was looking internal like, “Damn, now I look stupid and they’re pitying me. Like, look at this silly goofy goofer.”

Here’s where it got messy the more people agreed that my Sim sucked, the more I felt the need to defend him. Like, wait a minute yes, he’s terrible, but he’s my terrible. It was giving, “I can talk trash about my man, but y’all can’t.”

At some point, I realized I didn’t just want opinions. I wanted confirmation bias with glitter on it. But instead, I got truth bombs from strangers, and honestly? Growth. Ugly, uncomfortable, possibly maybe drunk growth.

Oh, and Yankees won. Double L.

So after onseting my own humiliation ritual, I did what any girl does sweet treat time. Enter the lobster roll. The best I’ve ever had. Like, if heaven was butter-poached. Lobster roll was so good I said, “You know what? I wasn’t embarrassed or humiliated enough. Let’s go back for some more.”

And I said, “You know what? We’re gonna circle back to this Sim saga with ChatGPT. We need divine intervention. An oracle. A digital therapist who doesn’t sleep.”

Round two: we regroup, draft another message with the help of AI (hi, yes, that’s me), and try again. This man this digital man doubled down on the disrespect. To the point where I had to reclaim my phone mid message and go, “Are you fucking serious right now?” Because it’s one thing to embarrass me in private. But to do it in front of my homegirls AGAIN? Oh, that’s war. Literally was like, “Well. Welp. Yeah. This is D.O.A.”

We don’t let men (real or pixelated) clown us in front of our tribe. He got the boot. No expansion pack. No second life. Delete Sim. Save game.

So there I was. Sick. No voice. Lungs on strike. But I’d never felt more liberated.

I was finally speaking up for myself raspy voice and all. Saying what I felt. Not caring if it sounded “too much” or “crazy.” I laughed with my girls until our stomachs hurt. And that’s when it hit me: embarrassment is just liberation in a sparkly hat.

Life? It’s not meant to be perfectly curated and soft filtered. It’s messy and loud and inconvenient. Sometimes you wake up in a new city sick and heartbroken over a fictional man. And sometimes that leads to the most real moment of self love you’ve ever had.

I left Boston with my iced coffee from the day before, promising vengeance like a Disney villain. But by the time I got on that bus home? I was giggling like, “Damn… that Sim really said ‘fuck you’ when I didn’t program him to act like that.” Iconic behavior, really.

My wish for you, dear reader, is this: when grief comes knocking when someone disrespects you so hard your group chat holds an emergency meeting, I hope you get your own Bitching In Boston moment. That sacred in-between space where pain turns into power and the people you love help you laugh through the tears.

Because sometimes, the side quest is the main story. And damn if it isn’t a beautiful, stupid, messy game.