I've been thinking about the open road. Not a particular one -- just the thought in general. I wrote a post for the Daily Revolution last year, about the benefits of travelling in general, and crazy American places to visit in particular. It's been weighing on my mind recently.
How can you live one place forever? I don't know. It's not my experience. I know a lot of people, my boyfriend included, who have done just that. Okay, so in his example, that's not technically true. He moved across his state for college, then moved to a few other places for grad school and a job. But then he got his permanent job, and here we are. However, before college, he lived in maybe two or three houses max, in the same metro area.
Me? I don't even know if I can come up with an accurate count of where I lived pre-college (and during and post? Florida, Indiana, Florida again, New Mexico, Tennessee, New Mexico again, California, New Mexico yet again...). I think...Eliot and York, Maine; Somersworth and Rochester, NH; Gaithersburg and Mt. Airy, Maryland; York, Maine again; Gallup, New Mexico (two houses); York again; Enfield and Canaan, New Hampshire...the list is so long. A minimum of 13 houses in 18 years.
I know there's been a lot of research into how this kind of moving affects kids. I'm sure most of it is significant and affecting. Whatever the fuck. I liked it. A lot.
You know -- I don't know where I'm really going with this. Except I've been in my current house, and town, for coming up on nine years now. I find that incredible. Unbelievable. Impossible. It's a good place for us. But I look at the highway, any highway, and I can't comprehend that this is the end of the road. There is no end of the road, for me. I want to see those mileage signs forever.
How does it end?
It's not supposed to...
I read somewhere that the national average for home ownership is about 5 years (as well as the nat'l ave. for marriages to last in this country). It seems we are becoming a more fluid, transient society. Things that used to be considered permanent, like marriage and home ownership, are now only temporary situations.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think this is a very human thing to do - if we weren't so interested in novelty we as a species may have died out a long time ago.
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