The quiet summer is over…

So this is it.

We’ve moved from the house which we had spent months getting just the way we liked it. We’ve left a city that Betsy has loved since she was a teenager. We’ve packed up our lives into boxes, put them in storage, and left them in Charlestown.

And gone to Omaha.

I have nothing against Omaha. I didn’t know exactly where it was until my interview out here, so I didn’t have much of an opinion one way or the other. But why move there? Why move to a place which is an eight hour drive to a major city?

Of course it was for a job. Hey, after all, my parents moved plenty of times – both before I was born and when I was a kid. So how hard could it be? Of course, by the time they were in their thirties their roving days were over, and they ended up in the same general location as the rest of their families.

Not us, though. In some ways we’re much further (even though not so much geographically). After all, plenty of people can justify a vacation in Boston (with a side trip to visit with us), or meet up after a business trip there. Out here, however, we’ve got only one friend who said he would swing by – and that’s because there’s a plant “in the corn” about 100 miles away that he’s required to visit every few months.

I can’t say it’s a complete “fish out of water” story – after all, I grew up in a mid-sized Midwestern city. But perhaps instead it’s a little more subtle. This is like what I remember growing up, but not quite the same. It reminds me of visiting a place like Canada, where almost everything seems the same until you see a cereal box written in two languages.

Now we’re here, and while we haven’t settled in, I feel like we’re at least surviving. Yes, Betsy is miserable and keeps wishing we could go “home”. Yes, I’m still looking for the Dunkin’ Donuts. Yes, we live in a temporary apartment that is carpeted under Maggie’s high chair, which is really annoying.

But we’re surviving.