Introspection: Change

When I graduated from college in 2005, I never ever ever thought I'd come back here. I certainly never expected to live here again.

Then, of course, I met my amazing husband...who went to school here. We got married, lived in my parents' basement for 8 months, and then moved back to my college stomping grounds.

At the time, I thought he had 2, maybe 3, years left. Ooooh boy was I wrong. We've been here 3 years and still have another year and a half to go. And then comes grad school. He takes 12 credits at a time; we don't think our family could handle more than that. He's in school, works part time, and we have 2 kids. Not to mention church responsibilities.

I didn't really want to move back here.

For one, winter is way too cold. I grew up in a nice, temperate climate where snow is rare. Here, it snows 5 months a year. I'm not even exaggerating.

While in school, my only modes of transportation were bike and my own 2 feet. Walking to the grocery store in the snow isn't exactly on my fun list.

And I didn't exactly have the best roommate experiences. Ahahahahaha, boy is that an understatement. There's a reason I don't keep in contact with most of my past roommates. And it's not laziness...

But now, I have a car and the best roommates possible. No more walking to the store in the snow. The kids and I walk to the store in the summer, but that's because we want to.

Of course, there are stresses to family life, too, but it's infinitely better. It helps that I love my family.

And I don't have write my name on my food and wonder if my roommates will respect me enough to not eat it anyway. I can fill the fridge and cabinets with food I want. I don't have to share my space with anyone who doesn't like me.

Winter here is still way too cold. Nothing will change that. Not even the supposed "global warming." But at least now I don't have to go out in the snow everyday. I can stay in my PJs all day. It's 3 PM and I'm still in them.

My attitude about this place has changed. I don't think I'll ever enjoy how cold it gets, but I do enjoy living here.

I used to scoff at the sign near the freeway that says, "America's Family Community." After all, it's a college town.

But there are a ton of fun activities for families. Lots of parks, community events, college events, etc. It really is a great community, especially for families.

We've had a wonderful summer and fall. We did so many fun things. We went on walks, went to fairs, walked to the library and the park, and more.

I still don't want to live here forever. I don't want to spend more winters here. I'm already on my 8th winter and we'll be here next winter as well. Winter barely started and I'm already sick of it.

But overall, this is a great place to live - at least temporarily.

I never thought I'd say this, but...I'll be sad when we do leave someday. It won't happen for a long time, but I know I'll be sad when it does. At least to some degree. I'll be more excited than sad. I'll be excited to move on with our lives, for John to go to grad school, to be one step closer to him landing a good job and buying our first home.

We've had so many friends come and go since we moved here. Our ward has literally completely changed since we moved in. There are only 2 other families in our ward who were here when we moved in - and one of them is moving soon, and the other moved away for a year and came back.

We've only been here for 3 years.

It seems that as soon as we make friends and get to know them, they move away.
I long to have nearby friends who don't move. To be friends with the same families for 5+ years. I'd love to be in a less transitional time of life.

We don't really have many friends here. Well, we have a lot of "see at church" friends, but no "hang out all the time" friends. We don't really hang out with anyone who isn't related to us.

I suppose that's our own fault. We don't invite people over very often, so people don't invite US. We try, but something always comes up. Last time, our kids got sick, as did the family we invited over.

I think people get intimidated by the fact that we have kids. We're in a married student ward, chock-full of newly weds. The oldest child in our ward...is Emma. And she JUST turned 3. Thankfully, there's another little boy who turned 3 a few days later, so she won't be the only sunbeam next year.

Most people we know don't have kids. Or if they do, they only have one, and that one is usually a baby. There are a few with kids semi-close to Emma's age, but not many. And the age gap is over 6 months, except for the little boy who's a few days younger.

I think people assume that because we have kids that it's "too hard" for us to do things. Ha! SO not true. We love to socialize. We do all sorts of things. I run errands with both kids by myself all the time. While I do prefer to have John come along, I can totally manage it by myself.

It's either that or people just don't like us. And I'd like to think it's not that. Not that their approval really means much; as long as I'm doing what I should be, it doesn't matter what other people think.

But I still want people to like me.

I still want that approval, even though I know it really doesn't matter.

Funny how that doesn't change, when so many other things do.