An old friend of Hub's posted up on Facebook today that he's back in the 'boro for a few days where it feels like putting on a favorite pair of your old jeans.
Yeah, but maybe I put on a few pounds since I last wore them.
I just thought it was ironic, because I meant to post last night about how I just really don't fit in anywhere anymore. I'm a country girl at heart, but when I'm home I feel like I'm suffocating. I go to Alco and people know me, but I don't know them. It's disconcerting.
Everything I've experienced, everything I've felt, the broken hearted moments, the happy ones--most are unknown to the people back home. They expect me to be the same person I was when I left in '94. That comes with both good and bad connotations. When the last time I person saw you, you were being an idiot and riding on top of a bus or cruising with a guy who is not your current spouse...ugh. It makes my stomach turn.
I lived in the 'boro for four years. I've been in the city for 10. Six in this very house. You tell me where my home is. But if you ask me? The 'boro.
And then I come back to the city where I don't only feel like I'm suffocating, I know I am. The air isn't clean. The noise is unending. The neighbors don't even know your last name, nor do they care. You can't remember the last time you've seen the dude two doors down, nor are you sure that if you did see him, you'd know he was the dude two doors down. You can go to the store and buy milk everyday because no one there knows you and even if they do, they don't know you were there just this morning buying bread and they are too busy to care. The people around you that you've come to care about have moved on because it's a mobile society and you just want to give up on people altogether because you are tired of being left behind....
Of course when you live where you've lived your whole life, the people know too much about you and they will never let you foget it. No matter how much you've read about being a new creation.
I crave late night walks with my husband and lazy afternoons by the lake. Spontaneous relaxation. That's what I think of when I think of living in the 'boro. I don't know. I haven't lived there, basically, for 15 years. Maybe if I was there, every moment of every day would be scheduled out and the only relaxation I'd get is the relaxation I'd have if I put it on the calendar. But I KNOW that here in the city, if I want to take an afternoon off with a girlfriend, it will take a month's worth of prep and won't be a lazy day. It may be a spa day (and there is something to be said for those...don't get me wrong), but it won't be a day on a lakeside dock with a radio and a pepsi and the smell of sunscreen (or tan oil).
The thing is, I've come to the conclusion that I've become too citified to be country and I'm too country to ever be city.
So where does one go?
(A vinyard in Argentina.)
6 comments:
Hey, Jamie! I've been wondering what you've been up to! Dreaming about relaxation? I'm wondering if I've ever really relaxed a single since I had kids! Not that I don't love my kids! I'm just sayin'.
I thought it was Venezula?
Well, I know I am a city girl. I don't like the creepy crawlies that you so often find in the country. But I, too, dream of the dock with a Diet Coke and tanning lotion. Can't you smell it all now? I even love the smell of gas when I am on a small fishing boat. It reminds me of my grandpa and his boat. Boy, did I love that man and his boat.
How come we all feel left behind??? I, too, have been feeling that way a TON lately! Throw in a sick kid and a VBS schedule, not to mention the husband who has to study ALL SUMMER LONG...and it feels like I have nothing but time but not time enough to spend it with friends.
I am going to say that isn't a city or a country problem. Just a busy society. Sigh...I don't think it is going to slow down until I hit my eighties...
Mrs. Nurse Boy
You need to do what we're trying to do: move to the countrity or the citrounty.
We're hoping to move to Stilwell or Spring Hill. Maybe even Bucyrus. It won't take us any longer to get to I-35 and SMP driving down 35 (or 69) than it does to drive down SMP and hit every light.
Yet we get smaller town living, breezes from the country and, wait for it, quiet. Closer to the lake too :).
Not so small everyone knows your bid-ness, but small enough. Not so small that it's impossible to ever become part of the community (because you're forever branded "the new girl"), but small enough to run into salt-of-the-earth country folk.
I'm hoping against hope we can find that. Or at least be secluded enough so that nobody can hear me scream when I need to let go of the "city".
It is SO nice when you find your thoughts (especially the crazy, frustrated, bizarre, questioning thoughts) are not limited to you alone. I like your "same life different life" line in your comment to my blog!
I have lived in different parts (country outskirts and city) of the same town my entire life and I still don't feel like I fit in...
I figure it's not the place, it's the person.
So, yes, a vinyard in Argentina sounds perfect.
I'm not sure I can relate because I've always been a city girl. Well certainly not a big city girl. Chicagoan's or New Yorkers would disagree that I'm a city girl. OK, I'm a midwest suburb girl, born and bred.
I think though, that we all have happy times in our life that we want to escape back to. There's a time for everyone that they dream about, when life was simple, happy, carefree and without the day to day stress we trudge through now.
For me, it's Idaho, where DH and I lived the first 2 years of our marriage. He was stationed at an Air Force base there. No kids, no in-laws, no stress at all. Just a young couple in love, exploring in the mountains for fun, or relaxing on a couch all afternoon.
THAT's the time and place I dream about returning to.
But we can't go back, eh? And look what we have now!! :) Not as peaceful or stress free, but better in its own way.
Message from the Boro! Home is between the ears. To find it, you need to just unload the mind. How do I do that? Just sit on the covered front porch and watch the idiots drive by at 50 mph in the 30 zone. Idiots!! Go to the little home owned grocery store where everyone knows my name. Prices are almost lower than Walmart or big chains. Lots of folks go out of town to be overcharged at Walmart! Idiots!!
Watch the ferral (wild) cats sneak across our 1/2 acre yard. If they sneak, I suppose they can't be seen. Idiots!!
It's only a few miles to all the conveniences of high prices, speeding and tailgating, long lines at the overcharge stores, and crunched squirrels that don't have any better luck at getting across the street than we have getting off/on the ramp at shift change.
So, its all between the ears. Know who you are ( find time to relax ) and know you are not the only idiot. Love them anyway - idiots. Love them, even if I don't like what they are doing. Idiots.
So, Unload what is between the ears and forgive and love the idiots.
O yes, we have a huge garden 50 x 70 Feet. No need to eat the poison on the walmart veggies. Grind our own wheat, make our own bread and mostly eliminate sugar and pop from our diet. That stuff turns you into an idiot!
Sr. Citizen
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