Choices

When we decided to move from the city to the country, I pondered the idea of buying a house on the lake just outside down. It's a wonderful lake, but is quite crowded with year-round homes. There were some in the price range I knew we could afford, but they weren't as nice or the same size as the house we ended up buying. Additionally, the lots were much smaller. Here, I have seven acres of forest around my house. There, I would have been paying more money for less house and less land.

My cubs sometimes complain that many of their friends live on the lake and they wished that we did. Today we talked about it for a while. I asked them if they like being able to have the constant quiet of the woods and to be able to hang out in the yard without always having people stopping by. They said they did. This conversation was taking place in the car on the way to the grocery store and my point was driven home while we shopped.

We were stopped multiple times by students, parents, friends, etc. who just wanted to say hi. I never mind this; shopping or leaving the house is truly a social event when you live in a small town. It's like Cheers - "where everybody knows your name". As a local teacher, it's even more so. I am always running into people who know me; sometimes it's a parent and I simply cannot remember their name.

When we got back to the car and were driving home, I brought this up to the cubs again. I said "can you imagine what it would be like if we lived on that crowded lake? Every student that happened to go by in a boat would stop to say hello. There would never be any quiet like we have now." I could see the lightbulbs going off in their heads - they understood my need and desire to have some space. They enjoy it too. They have to share their mom with a huge number of teenagers constantly, but home is home - here I belong to them. I think they like that.

Peace