All the things we leave behind

I've had a couple of really eventful weeks.  I spent a week in Tennessee with one of my best friends, tooling around the Dress Barn and eating sno-cones and soaking up all of my southern trash food nostalgia.  Capped off with the fact that their house, which had been sitting on the market for 18 months, suddenly had a bunch of interested parties, one of which actually put down an offer while I was there.  Bang!  Their house is sold and they bought another one.  Forget burying the St. Joseph's statue in the yard, just invite me down for a week.  We'll get right on that.  

Last week, I was in Maryland with my husby to see his family.  It's not really vacation when you see people you're related to.  I love my family and I love my husband's family, but that's just how it is y'all.  Vacation is when you don't see the people who share your DNA.  

It's got me thinking hard about where we live and what we do.  I was tripping down the steps at my sister-in-law's house and suddenly it occurred to me, "it would be so nice if we could just drop by her place and visit with her on the weekends."  Now I'm sure my feelings would be different if we actually DID live that close, but I'm trying to plan my annual visit down south and it's proving to be really hard.  I have a job for the month of July.  I'm going to France for a week in August to do some singing.  September, the church job starts back and then I have an orchestra gig.  October seems promising, but then my little brother is already back at school so I won't see him for yet ANOTHER year.  I love our house in Boston.  I love coming home to our space that's decorated with our colors and holds our furniture and our dog and our friends.  I love when people come over to our house for supper - like last night, when we cooked Christmas present dinner for Mary and Laura - and I like it when we pile into cars with our friends and take day trips out to breweries on the Cape and have cookouts and go to Red Sox games.  I love all of those things, and more.  We took the train to the airport.  From right outside our house.  Never in a jillion years would that be possible in the state of Louisiana.  It just isn't possible.  At the same time, something in me longs for those drives on wide, straightaway roads.  I haven't driven much since we moved to Boston, other than here and there around the city - public transportation is totally the way to go for me.  But I miss it.  

I feel torn in two most times when I think about this.  Other than the people I love, I really don't know if I could find a peer group that suits me so well.  People from different backgrounds with common interests and (mostly) common philosophies on life.  I had forgotten what it was like to see people flinch when I say, "Fred and his husband Warren."  And I don't mind that forgetting.  I had also forgotten what it was like to have someone say, "Excuse me honey," when they have to get past you in a crowded place.  Recently, a high school friend remarked on facebook that the TSA people in the Boston airport were terribly rude to him.  Now I'm not saying that I'm all lovey-dovey with the TSA, but I spend far more time in the Boston airport than most people do, and I would say they're polite and efficient.  But it's not the same as the TSA people in Knoxville, who are twanging sweetly at you and asking you if you're having a good day.  The airport is also the size of my living room, so they have the time to do that, and they're not considered a "high-risk" airport like Boston is.  

How much do we give up as we grow up?  I've already given up red wine (acid reflux) and eating fatty foods as much as I want (Gilda has to fit into the bag) and seeing my best friend's baby (they live in Texas) and birthdays and anniversaries and spending holidays with my family, mostly because of gigs.  I've given up months away from my husband for work, and paid obscene amounts of money on plane tickets, just to steal a few days with him.  For what we paid for our house in Boston, we could have a beautifully restored Victorian on an acre of land in Louisiana.  How do we justify decisions when our heart is in many places but our address is only in one?  

I need red velvet cake.