question #2

On to question #2. Sorry I missed yesterday...it was my first day back in the office for a few days, and with payroll and all...



2. how is it to live in the town you grew up in? (i'm asking this because i occasionally try to picture myself in my hometown and envision what my life would be like.) what are the pros and cons?



Todd and I moved back to the town we both grew up in after Carson was born in 2000. It was like as soon as he came out of the womb kicking and screaming we both knew we wanted to move back. Both sets of parents still live here, and we knew that we wanted out kids to grow up near their grandparents.Both Todd and I knew our grandparents well (although grandparents today just aren't the same as they were then...) and loved that relationship and wanted it for our kids.



After we moved back I had an incident in the post office where a gal who CLEARLY knew who I was said hello (even addressed me by name), and I had no idea who she was. To this day, I still can't find her in my yearbook. I think I went to high school with her, but who knows. That kind of freaked me out. Then, not long after, while shopping for bras in Target, I run into a guy who I went to HS with. I know what I was doing there, but don't ask me why he was with his mother and grandmother in the bra section. Anyhoo...he had just gotten out of jail and was "back at home." WTF? What had I done returning to my hometown?



Initially I had this strict dichotomy in my head of those who grew up here and those who had moved here since I left. I kept all of these people straight in my head and classified everyone I made contact with accordingly. Then one day I realized that this was a lot of work for nothing, so I quit. Now (after we have lived here for almost 9 years)I have to stop to think "are they from here, or are they transplants?" We had always talked about having a big party after we moved back and inviting all of us who had moved back with their spouses so everyone could meet everyone else. When the list got to 90 of us who had returned (not including their spouses!) we decided it was too big of a task. There were too many people who moved back here for the same reasons as we did.



I love living where I grew up. Seeing this community thru adult eyes is a whole different thing. I am on committees with my high school friend's parents. I am seen as an adult. I am seen as myself, and not so-and-so's daughter. My kids go to the same elementary school as I did. They will go to the same high school. Some things have changed: we now have a middle school that I didn't exist when I was here the first time; we have a bus route now; we have an Old Navy now; most everything is on the "south" end of town. Lots of things have stayed the same: the east part of town is still called "the hill"; there are still stores worth going to downtown; that's my Dillons is still here (although I don't like the remodel); scary Dillons still exists; Todd's folks still live in the same house he grew up in.



So, for what it is worth, I love living in this community. It feels comfortable and right. There are good days and bad days. Sometimes I feel like I am "keeping up with the Jonses", but if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing!