Home Sweet (and Sour) Home

The problem with vacations is that they sometimes do more than serve as relaxing getaways, giving a little push to the always prevalent desire to get the hell out of New York City for good. Being around houses that cost half as much as what we were looking to buy a few months ago, for twice as much space, inside and out in most cases, added to the feeling. We ended up staying in VA for an extra day because we weren’t looking forward to returning to the same old grind of maintaining the status quo. While there’s some legitimacy to our wanting to skip town again, the “grass is greener” factor is equally significant. Life’s tough all over, only the scenery changes.

Reality is, barring some drastic solution like going completely off the grid and home-schooling in a yurt, we have to stay put for at least a year while we figure out what’s what with India. Some days are better than others and I catch myself tricking myself into thinking it is simply a speech delay that she’ll catch up on in a developmental spurt. As it is, there’s been noticeable improvement, but it goes hand-in-hand with recognizing some Autism-like behaviors that we’d previously rationalized as her being exceptionally independent.

Wanting to leave NYC, for me at least, is partially rooted in my wanting a simpler life where I look forward to more than comic book Wednesday and the always-too-short weekends. $300k houses, 8am-6pm days at a job I don’t particularly care for, and always being too tired or stressed to fully appreciate the limited couple of hours a day with the kids just don’t add up to my definition of the American Dream.

Blah, blah, blah. I have no idea what I’m even trying to say in this post.

Written by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is the Chief Content Officer for LibraryPass, and former publisher & marketing director for Writer’s Digest. Previously, he was also project lead for the Panorama Project; director, content strategy & audience development for Library Journal & School Library Journal; and founding director of programming & business development for the original Digital Book World.

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