hypothetical writing

I spend a lot of time in the car these days, commuting to Lincoln from JP. Most of the time I listen to NPR, sometimes to WERS, the college radio station, but other times I just zone out and write in my head. I rarely put any of these thoughts on paper, but my brain contains reams of potential Allison volumes. This is some of what my brain files contain: favorable reviews of albums released several years ago, letters of complaint to corporations who have wronged me, half-written emails to friends I haven't kept up with as well as I should have, grocery lists, lesson plans for next week, and journal/diary entries I would write if I still kept a journal/diary. This week, I've been mulling over one journal entry in particular. If I wrote this journal entry, I would title it "Why leaving the community I love in order to live in the suburbs might be the worst decision we ever made."

So that's what I really want to right about. That's why I'm awake 12:16 am, unable to sleep, because all I can think about is whether we are making a good decision or a bad one. Dave got a job in Marlborough. A JOB! He did the thing that was supposed to solve all problems and make life easier and better- after toiling for 6 years in grad school and sludging through this dark, miserable, hole, he came out the other side and, yes!, he got a job! And it's in Marlborough. And I work in Lincoln. And we live in Jamaica Plain. Which is nowhere near the two. We decided it would be a good idea to move closer to our jobs.

We're looking at a little town called Acton, in Northwest Massachusetts. It's about 45 minutes from the city, but it might as well be another country. To be fair, Acton doesn't seem like the kind of suburbia that Dave and I love to hate. There are no tacky strip malls with Applebees and Chilis restaurants. Driving through Acton, we saw wide open fields and pumpkin farms and stone walls. It's close to Walden Pond and Ralph Waldo Emerson's house, and even though I don't think being near that will improve my quality of life too much, I like knowing they are there.

But I can't help feeling this tight ball of dread in my stomach when I think of moving. JP has everything we want in a neighborhood. It's not just the convenience of being able to walk out of our apartment and grab a bite to eat or get some groceries a few blocks away, although that is a nice feature. It's not even the wonderful parks and green space, the pond right across the street, that I will miss most. For the first time as an adult, I truly felt like a member of a community. I know people in JP, I know their kids, and I feel like we fit in here.

Today Dave and I were on our way to brunch and I spotted a golden retriever tied up outside a shop. I pet and cooed over him, and then his owner came out. Turns out it was a new grandfather who was taking care of the dog for his daughter, who just had a baby. The new grandfather was pleased as punch to share this news, and I was happy for him. I asked if it was a girl or boy. It's a girl, he said. I don't really care for small talk, and I don't usually talk to random people on the street. But JP is different. I thought about the new mom and her baby girl, and I hoped to see her on the street some time, so I could congratulate her and welcome her into the community, just as other moms in JP welcomed me.