Living (letter to a friend)

As much as I hate looming unemployment, I love living here in Logan.

John and I grew up in basically the same town (well, 2 neighboring towns, we were less than 5 miles apart and never knew it. stupid Utah.) and after we married we just stayed put there. We didn't like it, but it was all we knew. Then it got worse and worse. Our cute little hometown had become overpopulated and polluted. Traffic was horrendous. Construction everywhere. Our neighbors sucked (we lived upstairs from a crack-whore and her handful of drunken, abusive boyfriends. One time, I seriously thought I was going to be murdered. The cops were out and everything.) Anyway. Our jobs sucked. We were constantly terrified of running into someone we knew--neither of us are into small-talk, and I'm especially paranoid about certain ex-friends and/or former neighbors/co-workers/acquaintances... we just craved our anonymity. Each of us would alternately come home from work in tears because we hated (HATED) where we lived. Hated with the fire of a thousand suns, hated.

Then we discovered Logan -- it's all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. so we picked up and got out as soon as the opportunity presented itself. We love it here. Even though we don't have our own home yet. Even though we haven't "settled down" yet. We'll get there eventually. It's easy to justify 5 little years in the "grand scheme" of your life, but looking forward at it, it seems like forever! Especially when you're just itching to move on. We are faced with a lot of that right now, with my job being up in the air, and the possibility that John won't be able to bring in any income for at least 2-3 years, and we want a house and a puppy and babies too! Will it ever happen? Or be the right time? Will we have the patience? On the one hand, I'm so excited that John will be getting an education and a way to help provide for our family, but on the other hand I'm really really bummed that we're "stuck" in our apartment and that John can't help out financially for a while. I need to keep reminding myself (and John, he gets discouraged by it too) that it's not forever, it's what most young couples live through, we have it better than a lot of people, and it will only make us stronger.

We're in a little townhome rental (2bd 1.5ba), sandwiched into #3 of a side-by-side 4-plex. Our Apt 2 neighbors are insane. It's a couple with 3 kids under age 5 and a grandma (did I mention the 2bd 1.5ba? for 6 people?). The dad is hardly ever there; I think he works a lot. But the mom! She yells and screams and shouts at her kids (in Chinese) all the livelong day. We can't even go upstairs in our own place during bathtime, because it's like World War 3 up there with all the screaming and crying and door-slamming. I swear sometimes they will break through the walls. Do I call the police? I can't even tell what she's saying to them. Oy. And then? I'm anal-retentive about my privacy, so I shut our blinds all the time (even though our complex is in a very private area) and never get fresh air or sunlight when I'm at home. We have 2 front windows and 2 back windows (1 each upstairs and down). I need me one o' them sun lamps, too. (I seriously thought I had S.A.D. but I couldn't tell if it was just a bad reaction to hormone therapy, or my thyroid, or what. When you're too depressed to go outside and/or weather doesn't permit, how do you get sunlight?) Hopefully this next winter season doesn't completely wipe me out.

I'm a Debbie-Downer today. Oh well, What we can't change, we can complain about, right? (it feels better, anyway.)