One Year
While I am afraid to really look at my credit card statements, I can tell you that a very high percentage of my expenditures these days would be irrelevant if I still lived in the North End. I don’t really get takeout on my way home from work anymore. Instead, I do things like buy extension cords. To be clear, I’m still eating on my “commute” - but it’s more like pretzel nuggets from Auntie Anne’s or Combos from the CVS in South Station. My diet is clearly something to be admired.
I thought it would be relatively entertaining to make a short list of things I’ve bought:
- 4 deck chairs and 1 table
- 2 solar timers
- 100+ ft of extension cord
- 200+ ft of decorative pre-lit garland
- 1 rake and 1 shovel
- 50 lb bag of pet safe rock salt
- 25 sets of 100 white light strings (they pretty much die annually)
- Anything for the garden...
So, this list is not inclusive of course but I can say with relative certainly I never would have bought a 50 lb bag of anything in the North End. I have pretty much exactly the same amount of friends that I had when I lived in Boston. But I certainly date a lot less. I was on a date recently that came to a screeching halt when I said I lived in Scituate. You know that feeling when you accidentally offend someone and then you scramble a bit to make up ground with them? That’s how it felt - except I had done nothing wrong. Thankfully, this memory was soon erased when another gentleman graciously snowplowed my driveway during the last storm … just to be nice.
But not all of suburban life is harvesting tomatoes, decorating for Christmas, and scavenging for sea glass. I commute for about 3 hours a day. I often go to bed before 10 pm. I have been to one spin class in the last year. All that being said, the suburbs are pretty great. I personally know the name of my mail lady and UPS guy. I see the sunrise every day that it isn’t overcast. I’ll repeat that. Every day. No change is permanent and who knows where I’ll live in 5 or 10 years but I’m doing pretty great right now.
BTW - I’m pretty proud of that jar of sea glass. I nearly filled that sucker to the top. Back in November, I opened up the jar to put in some finds and realized that it literally smells like the ocean. THE OCEAN. So now whenever I open it up, I get a little sniff and then shut it quickly for fear that the scent will be worn out and disappear. I also spent a good two weeks looking on eBay for my 2017 jar. Can’t wait for Regina the mail lady to deliver it.
Love your posts :-) I'm glad you're enjoying the suburbs.
ReplyDeleteThanks friend :) I love sharing them.
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