Situation A: Friends move to the Outer Limits of suburbia. One could almost say they moved to the country. This was a voluntary move. Nobody marched them at tunpoint out of the inner city and into the almost-country. They moved into a brand-new house–this friend is a fanatic about not ever living in a house anyone has ever lived in before–and then there was a couple of years of bitching about things wrong with the brand-new house that had to be fixed, but the main thing was…that they were so FAARRRR from everything! Long commute to work. Nearest grocery store a 20-minute drive. Stuck among the suburbanites, they felt so isolated. They could…SMELL COWS.
And then of course their subdivision filled up. They got a grade school. Empty lots became improved lots. The cow pasture became a strip mall. The original turnoff to their place, which wasn’t even marked, got a sign, then a bigger sign, then became an intersection that needed a four-way stop sign (great rejoicing), then an actual traffic signal, then a traffic signal with a left-hand turn arrow (more great rejoicing).
Then, a grocery store moved in, along with the usual suburban flotsam of Home Depot, a place to get hair styled and waxed, some fast-food places. It turned into a full-scale shopping center, where the cows used to be.
At first, more great rejoicing. Now they could walk to the store (as they could have done, and did, in the inner city). But there were problems. Actual traffic congestion. Polluted air.
So, in short, they moved into the country and bitched about country things, then as the area became more urbanized they bitched about urban things, and now they’re looking for another brand-new house, this whole process having taken about six years. (Thinks hard: yes. Six years.)
Situation B: Inlaws, who spent 20 years living in Rochester, NY, retired in Tucson. For the weather.
Not that they ever experience the weather, because they are inside, in their air conditioning, with their TV tuned to TheWeather Channel so they can point and laugh at Rochester and be happy they are not there.
In the summer they do not go outside during the day, and rarely during the night. They moan a bit about their utility bill. (Hello? Turn off the TV. Or at least try to remember the utility bill in Rochester in the winter.) Must wear sunscreen year-round. (Why? Since you never go outside.) They moan about their water bill. (Planted a bit of grass, ‘cause they missed the smell of fresh-cut grass.)
Okay, there are lots of places* you can go where, if you don’t want to go outside and don’t want your windows open, you can have a climate-controlled 75-degree year-round experience, without moving to a very warm place. You can have a lawn without going bankrupt (but maybe you can’t have an orange tree). I have visited them in Tucson in the summer. It’s not THAT hot. It’s a dry heat. It’s for cat’s sake why you moved to friggin’ Tucson! I would never turn on the AC although, unlike in Denver, I would turn it on in my car if I lived there, probably.
So maybe you need that greener grass to look at, or something. Or maybe it’s more like me painting my kitchen peach, and reveling in the peach and how it works with the countertops and the new curtains and being all happy in my peach kitchen, and then a couple of years later thinking it would look a lot better if I’d gone with a more intense color. I can hardly wait to paint it red.
*Cleveland, for instance.
