true home?

I am in such a sentimenal mood lately.

Life is so much easier here and so much better for the kids. We go to the free family fairs every other weekend, Maia goes to kindergarten (daycare) which costs like 25 bucks a semester, school will cost nothing and will provide the kids with a solid education, starting next week Maia will attend a swim-course (10 min from here), every Wednesday she can be part of the kiddie ballet in the town hall, and in the winter she will learn how to ski. And all this for a reasonable or super-cheap (compared to NY) price. Best price comparison are the parking tickets. I mean, you can already park almost anywhere here (sidewalk, side of the street, wherever, but if you do it wrong one time you'll get a 10$ ticket. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with NYC parking fines: If you don't put enough money in your meter (which mostly gives you only an hour) you will be fined $110, unless it's gone up since April. ;)

I am reading the messages of the online parenting group I am part of (in NY) and I can emphasize with the pre-school panic parents are put into by all the crap they have to deal with to make sure their little ones get a good educational start. I mean, ERB tests, pre-school portfolios, interviews with the child...it's absurd! And I am sure I would be part of the craze, if I would be there right now with Maia getting into kindergarden age.
Here they send you a letter that she is enrolled (automatically) in the kindergarten nearest you. The teachers are sweet, the kids are kids, they do lots of activities and hike a lot and that's the end of the story. No stress.

I have also just found an opportunity to ride someone's horse a few times a week. It'll cost me $75/month. I have always wanted that...next to wanting a horse myself, of course.

But regardless of all that, I miss New York. As much as I hate the traffic, the attitude, and the unbelievably unfair costs of this city (which make it impossible for the average or poor joe to enjoy the goodies) - I still love it because I feel it is my home. I grew up (mostly) in Vorarlberg but I feel like New York is where I belong.Also, I miss my friends like crazy. :(

I have very good friends here. Some are my best friends since childhood and I love them but my friends in NY were closer (in proximity), so I actually saw them every day and that made them like family to me. Rosa and I lead an almost symbiotic life. We shared dinner duties, drove each other's kids around, sat together for 1am movies and drinks to wind down from the day. This I just don't have here. All I have is a job that sucks every usable minute of the day out of me and an occasional meeting with one of my friends (- meetings I enjoy very much but are way too seldomly arrangable).

Maybe I just need to get used to my new home...

I realized today, that Dario has been the one who has passive-aggressively moved me into almost every direction my life has and has not taken into the past 10 years (kids, where we live, how we live, Austria, ...). If I think back, it was even he who suggested the college I went to. Again, a college I like very much - especially for its people - but had I had good advice (being a new immigrant) I probably would have attended a different school. God knows, in the States it's all about the name of the school you went to but I didn't know back then.I would have probably not moved to the Bronx (and spent so many years in a neighborhood that made me lose trust in people) and I would have probably met more people like Rosa is telling me about.
She always tells me that I have seen too much bad in the city and that not all people are like that. Her 2 older kids - 17-year-old twin boys - have grown up in the city and they are really great, normal kids. She never feared leaving them at school.

It doesn't matter. I miss and love all of it. I miss my ghetto friends as much as I miss my Ivy Leaguers. It has always been who I am. Always between the chairs, as they say in German...and maybe this is just my fate.I can draw that line through my entire life. Never truly belonging.But I am afraid to get into that. That will be part of a different self-analysis. One that might break me, even.