Making Memories

There are still moments every now and again on our new suburban adventure where I wonder how the hell we got here.

Where I look around our house wonder how it's possible that we are old enough and responsible enough to own something that is way more expensive and important than just clothes and shoes and books. Where I drive around our neighborhood, marveling at the fact that I actually own a car and haven't bought a monthly metro card in fifteen months. Where I swing my cart through the positively palatial aisles of the grocery store and suddenly the tiny cramped aisles of Fairway on the Upper West Side feel like they are a million miles away. Where I have a moment of panic because my life in Manhattan sometimes feels hazy and distant and almost like it was something I watched happen to someone else, rather than a life I lived for eight years.

And then there are the other moments. The ordinary and extraordinary ones. The ones where I am so happy to be in this place at this time, living this life. Where I believe I am exactly where I am meant to be.

The first one happened almost exactly a year ago, about four months into our brand new life. After that they were few and far between for awhile, but the longer we lived in our neighborhood, the more frequent they became until, all of a sudden and without me even noticing, those moments stopped being just moments. Instead, they became life.

Happy and healthy and home more than a year later, I don't miss the city that much anymore. Sure I sometimes get irritated at a morning commute that is three times as long as what it used to be, and I sometimes miss the ease with which I could see my friends and the grit and glamour that personifies Mahattan, but I don't wish we could move back.

I like being exactly where I am, and it still hits me sometimes just how lucky we were to have chosen this town, and the community that comes with it; a community filled with people who are warm and welcoming and kind, who are no longer strangers but neighbors and friends. People who care about us, and us them. People to talk with and laugh with and make brand new memories with.

And that's the biggest part of this whole adventure, isn't it? Fourteen months ago our house - and this life - were a book waiting to be written. We didn't have a regular corner store or a restaurant that knew our order without having to ask. We didn't have the living room where we sat to talk and laugh and plan. We couldn't see ourselves through the years on our brand new streets. Everything was new. Everything was different.

We had to make new memories.

And we have.

We have new people in our lives, a place that feels like ours, and new streets that tell our stories.

We are happy, and we are home and it really does keep getting better.

And for that, I am grateful.