Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Feeling at Home
Yesterday Shelly and I completed a whirlwind 36-hour (round trip) jaunt to Virginia to close on our house. We're homeowners (though we won't actually move there till July)! The moral of that story is: Don't move around large sums of money in the few months before closing on a house deal, even if it is to get all the money in one place so you can pay for said house. That's all I have to say about that.
But what I noticed is that I really feel at home in Northern Virginia (and the DC metro area in general). I've lived in the Boston area for 27 months of my life now, and the DC area for only 21. But Boston still doesn't feel nearly as much like home as DC does. I pondered why.
Part of it is that my principal time in DC (the 18 months between my BYU graduation and HLS matriculation) was a real coming-of-age for me. A college graduate with my first real job, in a fabulous singles ward (where I eventually met my wife), that was the Golden Age of my life. I concentrated more on having fun at that time than any other time. So the environs of DC conjure up those kinds of feelings in me.
Related to that, I made a lot of good friends in DC. Which is not to say I didn't make friends in the three years I was in law school. I certainly did. But for some reason I still feel that in general I'm closer to my DC friends than my Boston friends (if you're one of my Boston friends reading this, know that there are certainly personal exceptions, and you are one of them). Maybe it's because my time in DC I was always single and available and therefore always doing social things with a lot of different people, whereas here in Boston, I only spent my first four months unattached--after that, I was either concentrating on a long-distance relationship or married. The fact that I met Shelly in DC, and the fact that we both easily agreed to move to DC after graduation play a significant part in this factor, of course.
Also, DC is inherently prettier than Boston. Crossing the Longfellow Bridge over the Charles River and looking toward the Prudential Center with sailboats in the foreground is a lovely sight, but it doesn't compare to the idyllic feeling you get speeding down the George Washington Parkway. Colonial architecture instead of triple-deckahs everywhere. The absence of four-foot snowdrifts more often than not.
Most of all, though, I think it's because I just have never made the mental adjustment necessary to call Boston "home." It's always been temporary to me. As soon as finals were over each of my first two years, I took off as fast as I could for DC. Even though when I was living in DC, I always knew I'd eventually leave, it didn't feel the same as Boston does when I say, "I'm just here for school." In DC, it was "I'm here for now," which is a very different thing. And, of course, having chosen DC as our post-graduation destination, I will soon say of DC, "I'm here for good."
And I feel great about that.
(It should be noted, though, that I still read the Deseret News every day, and the GW Parkway still doesn't do to me what the sight of Mt. Olympus in the Salt Lake Valley does. Perhaps later I will decide whether DC or SLC is more "home" to me.)
But what I noticed is that I really feel at home in Northern Virginia (and the DC metro area in general). I've lived in the Boston area for 27 months of my life now, and the DC area for only 21. But Boston still doesn't feel nearly as much like home as DC does. I pondered why.
Part of it is that my principal time in DC (the 18 months between my BYU graduation and HLS matriculation) was a real coming-of-age for me. A college graduate with my first real job, in a fabulous singles ward (where I eventually met my wife), that was the Golden Age of my life. I concentrated more on having fun at that time than any other time. So the environs of DC conjure up those kinds of feelings in me.
Related to that, I made a lot of good friends in DC. Which is not to say I didn't make friends in the three years I was in law school. I certainly did. But for some reason I still feel that in general I'm closer to my DC friends than my Boston friends (if you're one of my Boston friends reading this, know that there are certainly personal exceptions, and you are one of them). Maybe it's because my time in DC I was always single and available and therefore always doing social things with a lot of different people, whereas here in Boston, I only spent my first four months unattached--after that, I was either concentrating on a long-distance relationship or married. The fact that I met Shelly in DC, and the fact that we both easily agreed to move to DC after graduation play a significant part in this factor, of course.
Also, DC is inherently prettier than Boston. Crossing the Longfellow Bridge over the Charles River and looking toward the Prudential Center with sailboats in the foreground is a lovely sight, but it doesn't compare to the idyllic feeling you get speeding down the George Washington Parkway. Colonial architecture instead of triple-deckahs everywhere. The absence of four-foot snowdrifts more often than not.
Most of all, though, I think it's because I just have never made the mental adjustment necessary to call Boston "home." It's always been temporary to me. As soon as finals were over each of my first two years, I took off as fast as I could for DC. Even though when I was living in DC, I always knew I'd eventually leave, it didn't feel the same as Boston does when I say, "I'm just here for school." In DC, it was "I'm here for now," which is a very different thing. And, of course, having chosen DC as our post-graduation destination, I will soon say of DC, "I'm here for good."
And I feel great about that.
(It should be noted, though, that I still read the Deseret News every day, and the GW Parkway still doesn't do to me what the sight of Mt. Olympus in the Salt Lake Valley does. Perhaps later I will decide whether DC or SLC is more "home" to me.)
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