Steve greeted me at the airport last night with open arms and a hearty “Welcome Home!” It was so good to be back together with my husband, but a thought has been nagging me all day. Am I home? Where is my home now? If home is where the heart is, then it’s here in California, where Steve is. Or is it where I get my mail? That comes to both states now. Could it be where my stuff is? That’s North Carolina.
Transitions are confusing times, and I admit, I’m discombobulated. (I love that word.) We’ll be “camping” for our final six weeks in California – eating microwave dinners on paper plates while sitting on someone else’s rejected furniture. That part will be an adventure. But here’s the kicker. Our rent for this 320 square foot apartment (bedroom, bathroom, sitting room that’s half underneath stairs where we both crack our heads at least once a day, and NO kitchen) is the exact same price as our mortgage for a 2,500 square foot house on almost an acre with more rooms that we have furniture to fill. And people wonder why we’re leaving the Bay Area. Absolutely, we’ll miss the beauty and the water and our friends. But there’s more than just the obscene prices that we won’t miss. In the three weeks total I’ve spent in North Carolina the last couple months, I’ve had conversations with more neighbors than in the seven years I’ve lived in Marin County. Could we be lacking a friendliness factor here?
OK, so maybe it’s not a good idea to blog when you’re exhausted. I mean, I just unpacked 101 boxes in four days and had a long, miserable flight. Tomorrow we’re going to watch the Blue Angels perform for San Francisco’s Fleet Week, so I’m sure I’ll have something cheerier to say next week. If you don’t see something new posted, please call 911 to have someone check on me. I may have bonked my head one too many times on these stairs.