So DAT and I just returned from Maryland for a week of vacation and spending time with family and I've officially got the Maryland Blues. Yesterday was the first day of the Fall semester and also the first day of my new job (which I LOVE and will talk more about later) but in the meantime, getting on the plane and leaving MD was super hard. It usually is, and I struggle with it each time. Since I was 7, every trip to the airport to return to Los Angeles was filled with an internal *painting by Annie Lee "Blue Monday"struggle to turn around and run back to the car and ask to stay....
Now everyone will say, and are very correct in saying, there is no place like Los Angeles. California is indeed a different breed and a pretty awesome place for all it's worth - but when I think back on much of my childhood bliss, (and it was blissful), those memories are centered around summers in Baltimore with lightening bugs, creeks and catching salamanders, long bike rides to the neighborhood pool and then longer bike rides to nowhere, baseball games in big empty fields surrounded by tall-grass, a 9:00 curfew at 9 years old because there simply was no reason to be in the house, playing house in my favorite tree, freeze tag, snow-cones, sandwiches and chips for dinner, running like mad to catch the icecream truck before it left our street, trying desperately to get in the house before my grandmother called my name a second time...or God forbid a third, the tire swing, and serious games of double dutch that stopped traffic at the speedbump.
As I enter a stage of my life where I've got the mommy itch, I view all of life through a mommy-lense. When I look at California and the type of experiences it has to offer my children, it's over shadowed by the childhood I was lucky enough to have in Maryland. How can I want for them any less than I had? To say nothing of people who pass you on the street and are not afraid of the eye-contact that may happen as a result then even go so far as to say...."Hi" or "Good afternoon" to a complete stranger. To grow up in a world where elderly actually can use help across the street and you mow not only your lawn, but the lawn of the older single lady next door...and you don't charge for it. To know that my children playing outside are not only under my watchful eye, but those of my neighbors as well - to have them grow up in a place where it actually does take a village to not only raise a child, but to cultivate a sense of ownership and community is my ultimate hope for my children.
Now to all you Cali lovers who will read this and say, "So are you saying this can't happen in California? I raised my children here perfectly fine," I will in reply say, to each his own and get over yourself. You may very well be correct in terms of what happened to you and your children, but what I want for my children has no bearing on your experiences.
Now if only DAT would read this and feel as moved as I do. He's a Cali-kid born and raised. Just my f 'in luck.
As I enter a stage of my life where I've got the mommy itch, I view all of life through a mommy-lense. When I look at California and the type of experiences it has to offer my children, it's over shadowed by the childhood I was lucky enough to have in Maryland. How can I want for them any less than I had? To say nothing of people who pass you on the street and are not afraid of the eye-contact that may happen as a result then even go so far as to say...."Hi" or "Good afternoon" to a complete stranger. To grow up in a world where elderly actually can use help across the street and you mow not only your lawn, but the lawn of the older single lady next door...and you don't charge for it. To know that my children playing outside are not only under my watchful eye, but those of my neighbors as well - to have them grow up in a place where it actually does take a village to not only raise a child, but to cultivate a sense of ownership and community is my ultimate hope for my children.
Now to all you Cali lovers who will read this and say, "So are you saying this can't happen in California? I raised my children here perfectly fine," I will in reply say, to each his own and get over yourself. You may very well be correct in terms of what happened to you and your children, but what I want for my children has no bearing on your experiences.
Now if only DAT would read this and feel as moved as I do. He's a Cali-kid born and raised. Just my f 'in luck.
1 comments:
I totally get this post. I would move to Agoura in a second if it was feasible.. and while its in CA, it was so similar to everything you described. If we could only go "home".
Is Maryland really still like that? I think the trick is finding a community that values family. We feel like we've finally done that.
Girl, I know your itch. That's what lead us to UT and CO, but ultimately we ended up back here.. not necessarily because it's CA, but because it's family.
Wanting Will to have a childhood like mine (also blissful) was something I had to let go of. It's a different time, he is a different kid. What I am trying to do now is bloom where I'm planted. And, you know that's a struggle for me!
Wherever you end up, you and Dev will give Dyson and Hunter (I threw in one of each) a childhood full of bliss, with parents who adore them and each other.
If you end up in Maryland, you better get your asses out to CA for at least a few weeks each summer.
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