2:29 p.m. - October 30, 2008
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To relocate or not to relocate, that's the musing of the day. I hesitate for two reasons: A long would-have-to-do list, and moving to a(nother) suburb doesn't appeal. If I move to Maryland, I want to live in the big city, not the leafy, master-planned community of Columbia. Downtown Baltimore, on the waterfront, or a busy part of DC, or an everything-within-walking-distance city like Bethesda. Not a bedroom community peopled by federal employees who trudge back and forth to commuter bus parking lots, but a city with lights and noise and things and people to look at. Rental properties are affordable in Baltimore, less so in Bethesda, but either option requires a multi-freeway commute to the office so which is more distasteful to me: Traffic or suburban living? A fast reply teases me yet spurs me on - go for downtown Baltimore, in a loft overlooking the water, and a bar where everybody will get to know my name. Idylls of the king, eh?
But not quite. If we can agree on the financial package I am leaning towards GO. Will need to buy a new car and furniture - Craigslist and Ikea will do just fine - and let this house sit empty with its newly remodeled bathroom and dustbunnies on the floors. Alternating frissons of excitement and worry, an eagerness to see the financial details, and a reluctance to commit.
I live in a suburb, in a five bedroom, three bath house with skylights and wood floors, with a view of serene, house-less hills green once the rains begin and tawny goldenbrown once they've ended, and I feel trapped by a plan I laid down years ago that now rings hollow. And yet I'm afraid to leave this predictability, this life of no surprises, most likely because I'd rather have tried and true than something unknown. That recipe has yielded poor results but like a fool, I order the same meal over and over.
Just get up and go.
