Urban Suburban Hippie

The neighborhood I live in is nice.

Lots of nice little houses, with nice little yards, and nice little moms taking nice little walks with their nice little kids.

It’s suburbia.

I struggle with it. Don’t get me wrong, I love having a yard the girls can play in, I love walking to the playground. I really like my neighbors. (Though the dogs across the back lane can shove it, I’m so sick of their barking at everyone that even dares think about them.) I like the accessibility to running trails. (Even if they are running trails with pretty woods on one side and gaudy McMansions on the other). I like that the street I live on has mainly houses with detached garages behind, so when you go for a walk it doesn’t just look like everyone lives in garages. I like that we’re only a mile from the girls’ schools. I like that (theoretically, since I haven’t managed it yet this year) I can walk to the farmer’s market.

But I just don’t quite fit.

I have several garden plots, I put up a clothesline, I have more than 2 kids. We live loudly. My children run around outside in their underpants on the regular. I actually don’t mind the sound of the highway, and miss hearing city noises at night. I long for little local stores, a coffee shop that isn’t a chain, houses that weren’t all selected from the same sheet of 7 choices of floor plan within a few years but instead grew and changed organically over time. And TREES. I miss trees.

But.

If I lived in the city, I likely wouldn’t have room for gardens. If I lived in the boonies, I wouldn’t be able to walk to the eye doctor. I’m not even sure a place exists where everything I love comes together. Maybe there isn’t one.

And maybe that’s okay.