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Fourteen Years

Next week, on June 2nd, I will have lived in the south eastern US for a totally of fourteen years, having left my youth home in New England in June 2007. Oh, it'll also be my birthday.

By this point I am very much adapted to southeast life. I've even picked up a bit of a drawl. This is my home now. I bought a house, got married (for the second time, granted), have some dogs and cats and a steady paying job and friends and overall a good life for an average adult living in this crazy world.

My brother and mother are coming to visit me tomorrow. It will be the first time I have seen either of them in person in over two years. They both still live in New England and the pandemic has not made visits feasible. I am excited. I'm also sad, because I am reminded the cost of having moved from the place of my youth. There are many people I do not get to see nearly as often as I would like.

Fourteen years is not forever (unless you are a fourteen year old, then, it can be forever for you), but it is long enough. It is longer than the amount of time I spent in grade school. It is the longest I've lived anywhere besides the state in which I was born. Fourteen years is long enough have contained four US Presidents (end of one, two terms of another, one term of "that one," and beginning of the current one). Fourteen years is double the life of a seven year old like my niece. Fourteen years is a lot for some, a little for others.

Here's to those fourteen . . . here's to a hopeful fourteen+ more.