We are going to get out of the City for a long weekend, and I think it is long overdue. I could be wrong on this, but I don’t believe we have slept outside of our apartment since June 2020. A good friend of ours has a little house upstate. It’s in a small subdivision of a neighborhood, and has all the feelings and trappings of suburban bliss, from about 1970. The family friend is out of town, and has offered the house to us. We jumped on the opportunity.
When we stay at this house, or when we Airbnb/VRBO a house that is in a neighborhood, I play this game in my mind of wondering what my life would be like in the suburbs? I have lived in New York City now for fifteen years, and I am thoroughly City-ized. And by that, I mean, I can live in a very tiny space, and have people on top of me all the time. Having lots of space is now very foreign. Could I function with so much room?
It reminds me of a story. We have some friends who used to live in NYC. They owned a small one-bedroom apartment, and when their kid was born, they knew they had to move. Very fortunate for them, their tiny apartment sold very well, which allowed them to move out to the country and buy a house. When we went to visit them after their move, their modest house was sparsely filled with furniture, and pictures on the wall. “We have more house than stuff,” they told us, “but we don’t want to buy stuff just to fill it up.” Their house is still scantly decorated.
I think we would also have a home with nothing in it, a little Scandinavian Style. (You know I have an IKEA fascination, right?) I’m not excited about owning a house, but the older I get, I find myself wanting a yard. Well, a back yard actually. Not so much for me, but for the kid. A backyard and an imagination is a pretty awesome thing to have as a kid.
