Maybe Not EVERYDAY...

Okay, I am not having much luck with the EVERYDAY blogging but I am trying to get better:) Some days I donʻt blog because I cannot seem to find the time and other days it is because I find it difficult to find anything night to say so I say nothing at all. Today I donʻt have much nice to say but I do feel like I would like to get it out.

I have lived a few places throughout my life. As a child I went from NJ to VA to SC back to NJ then to NY and back to NJ where I stayed from the age of about 5 until I was 18. So the best years of my childhood were spent in NJ, mostly in Belmar, with a great group of friends that will forever be a "family" to me. At 18 I moved to FL then back to NJ then it was off to Washington,DC @ 20. Since then I have lived in at a few different addresses in DC then with kids came the move out to the VA suburbs. My last move was 7 years ago making this by far the longest I have been at the same place since NJ. The experience here has been VERY different from the one I had in NJ and not in a positive way.

As I mentioned, Belmar, New Jersey will always be "home" to me. Sure, the town has changed and going back I could never find what was once there. Most of the families that had been there for generations are gone. The kids I grew up with have like me moved out of town or out of the state for work or never came home after college. Their parents have retired out of state or have passed away. Nevertheless, that is still home, they are still "home". They are the folks you run into and you can pick up a conversation right where you left it 20 years ago. They are the people the "get" your sarcasm in print:) The people that are always there to love & support you.

Now I have been here in VA, in my neighborhood, in my house for 7yrs, about half the time I spent in NJ. And at this point, 7 yrs into it I donʻt think I have made any of the connections I had in NJ. In 7 years I have been part of more "cliques" or clubs or groups of "friends" then I could imagine existed. It is not just this way for me but also for my kids & husband. It is soooooo strange. I wonder how the people here sit at the same pool with one another ALL summer but never talk. Kids the same age & often in the same class at school donʻt play together...Hell, they donʻt even say HELLO! Imagine with me if you will sitting on 8th Ave beach with our mothers and just walking by without at least saying hello, with our parents just ignoring one another. Itʻs just CRAZY! Itʻs sad.

I love my NJ Family. I want to love a VA family. Hell I would be happy not to have a revolving door of "friends" based on what you can "do" for them. Why is the common group of being parents of children the same age & living in the same neighborhood no longer enough to be polite to one another?

I hope that others of you have had better experiences wherever you are living now.