i have the bug...

...to move. every two or three years i get antsy and need a change of scenery. that worked well when i was younger and single but as a married mom of two? not so much.

we have good friends who live in northampton, ma and we visit them every fall. every year, jeff and i wax poetic about the life we would lead if we lived in northampton. they have funky coffee shops, electic shops and not a gap or banana republic for miles around. it's a community of artists and aging hippies and wacked out college students from nearby smith college. being different is not just encouraged, it's expected. Art, with a capital A, is first and foremost and women who wear jeans and fleece jackets and don't wear makeup are the norm.

i feel like northampton is so much more me than columbia, md. columbia is a wonderful community with fantastic schools and a staggering number of activities for kids and families. but artistic? quirky? nope and nope. everyone drives the same three or four cars (including me) and all the houses are variations of the same floor plan (including mine). we all wear the same clothes, shop at the same stores and have our hair done at the same salons. it's not that i don't like columbia - there are so many things i love about my community (namely that jeff's family lives here and we get to see them all the time). but every now and then i long for more. more funk. more unusual. more earthy and natural.

and the thing is, i know that moving to northampton wouldn't cure my wanderlust. i would love it for two or three years and then i would start to miss access to good shopping and restaurants, new houses with up to date plumbing and electrical systems and people who are a little more normal.

sigh.