dichotomy

My newfound enthusiasm for our new life didn't last into the new year. Maybe it's just my nature to never let something be completely okay. We're planning the life I want terribly, but just knowing that I will be leaving this life makes me a little sad. Just a week ago I told Lindsay the only things I would miss about living here would be my nieces and a couple of restaurants. But now I see things I'll miss everywhere I look.

It's no secret that I've completely outgrown my job, and at times I almost hate it. But I have good friends there, people I would never know otherwise. My best friend at work is a 38-year-old mother of four. Unbelievably, we have so much in common. I have work friends from Somalia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, and Egypt. They just give me a different perspective on things. You wouldn't believe some of the things some of them have lived through. It's enough to make you wonder how you ever got so lucky as to be born in this country at all. I am lucky to know them all. And the hospital is an exciting place....very fast-paced and diverse. You should hear me try to explain how to get to the ER in Spanglish to a stabbing victim (that happened....he showed me the wound....ok, maybe I won't miss that!)

I'll miss St. Paul, too. We have an awesome Farmers' Market, and I've gotten used to having cheap, fresh vegetables in the summer. Also, we buy meat and eggs there year round, and I've grown to dislike the grocery store chicken and eggs. We have fun stores close to home, like Peapods and the Red Balloon Bookshop for kids' stuff. We have Mississippi Market down the street which is a co-op that always has the "Just Tomatoes" line of dried fruits in stock, not to mention organic fruits and veggies. We have lots of restaurants close to home and beautiful old streets with wonderful trees. They are especially great in the fall and winter. I have lived here for almost four years with Greg and one year with Subashi before I was married, and it's become my home.

I'll miss our house, even though it's too big and hard to keep up for slobs like us. We bought it together and picked out all the furnishing especially for it. We have a great front porch, where I spend most of my waking moments in the spring, summer, and fall. We eat dinner out there, talk out there, meet neighbors there, listen to Twins games on the radio and drink wine out there. We have great neighbors. Oscar even has two best (dog) friends among our neighbors. Phoebe is also part border collie and lives across the street, and Georgia is his other favorite bitch....she lives one street behind us. We live two blocks from the Mississippi River, and Osky and I walk down there almost every day. You can see an amazing array of birds there. There is a bald eagle we see quite often. I named him Baldeagle Badugelkinz.

I ride the train to work. It's so nice only having to drive a couple miles a day. In the winter, when we don't travel as much, I buy gas for Goldy about once every 2 months, in the summer about once every 6 weeks or so. I like to go to Twins games and Gophers games every so often. Next week Greg and I are going to a Timberwolves game. We also occasionally go to the Minnesota Orchestra or a play at the Ordway or Orphium. We have Midwest Mountaineering in Minneapolis which is an awesome outdoors store and also REI over in Bloomington.
We have friends here, although we don't see them nearly enough. Our only family here is my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their two daughters, but they are like our best friends. Paul can always be counted on to help out with anything, even if you ask last minute, and Steph is always good for some conversation. I love my nieces Britta and Sophie so much, even when Sophie is puking at the dinner table and Britta is demanding 10 books before bedtime. I will miss them most of all.

"This is the year we're going to get our shit together and finally start our new life," Greg said to me today. It really is the plan, and I'm happy about it. Hell, I invented it. But I'm sad, too. Nothing's ever black and white with me. It's always a dichotomy....shades of gray.
I hope this year is a good one....