We lived in Brooklyn for several years, long before Zane came along. I learned how to be married there. How to get along, make new friends, commute by subway like a pro, love and learn about people from different countries, and feel comfortable being a minority.
I didn't like it there so much the first several months, having shifted over from a brief stint in Long Island. I found it hard to sleep with the new urban noises outside my window every hour of the night. It seemed like a really dirty, old, and unkempt place. Every single patch of narrow road was littered with trash and potholes; double parking was the norm. I learned the ways of living in this seemingly unsettling place that today seems more like home than anywhere else in the world.
I also saw beauty and history once my eyes adjusted and I let my guard down. I met some of the more interesting people I may ever encounter. I was never bored, there was always somewhere new to explore or visit. Brooklyn holds the best summers a girl could ask for. Living there helped me become a new person and it holds so many memories I wish I could bottle up and share with everyone I meet.
I have to admit, all of that aside, I would not say it was an easy place to live. For that I hope to always be grateful for the little luxuries living in the burbs has to offer. I hope I am always thankful for the following things:
* no alternate street parking
* my own parking space
* a garage!
so much more than I really need in life
* no air conditioning unit hanging from our windows
thanks to the novel idea of central air conditioning
* no shared walls
* no mariachi music blasting above my head
* parking lot at the grocery store
* sidewalks without jagged cracks to trip on
* dish washer
* no visible graffiti
* no bars on windows
* no bullet proof glass in front of the cashier
at the post office and taco bell
* garbage disposal
* no need to have a guard check my receipt as I leave a store
* kitchen cabinets
more than 2 of them
* a pantry
* coin-free washer and dryer, inside my home
* closets
* Trader Joe's
* neighborhood shrubbery and trees
more vegetation in general beyond the parks
* no radiator or baseboard heating
I never got used to the sound in the middle of the night
* visiting a friend without planning an extra 30 minutes to park
we were wusses and tried to drive a lot in the winter
This is not to say there is a competition over what is better [burbs or urban]. It is to say there are great things about both lifestyles and my mind often finds itself torn between missing one and enjoying the other.
Adriana, you are so hating this post. I could have expanded more on the awesome about it, huh.
Tania, did I miss anything in my list?
