Living in a College Town when you're not in College

The people of college towns are pretty fascinating to me, especially in mid-sized towns where you can really get to know things. Some people are there for the obvious, utilitarian reasons...some aren't. Physicists and Milton scholars go grocery shopping with random locals and sorority girls. Each person's stay in this place is unique and can be visibly charted, like rings on a tree.

There are the college students and there are the "lifers", and then there are the mid-grade hangers-on like me who just sort of stay around. The ones who got a job, started grad school, or simply didn't have any better plans.

In the back of our minds we know we might leave eventually, but that decision still lies pretty far off, and it makes life comfortable here in our college town. Ghosts of old friends mix with new circles of  more serious friends with mortgages. We start getting passionate about the quirks of our town and make blogs like The Waco Suck (at first it sucks, and then it sucks you in --which, by the way, is hilarious to me.) We are taken aback and are sort of offended if newcomers don't like it here.

The problem with being a mid-grade hanger-on is that it sort of spoils you for any other way of living. Logan and I might move on in a few years, but in the meantime I have grown attached. Just any town won't do. I've gotten picky.

Getting around Dallas is extremely irritating now, since even an ounce of traffic seems like an outrage. Cities with no houses over 50 years old seem to have zero personality. I can actually feel my soul being crushed by the prospect of commuting. Waco isn't a metropolitan tourist destination, but at least when you're here, you can't mistake it for anywhere else.

You could say it's just about the people, or the fact that going on six years in a place gives you time to find out all the secret nooks and crannies that make it endearing, or that it's because Logan and I began our life here, and it's hard to imagine it against any other backdrop. But I think a big part of why I like it here is simply because it is a "college town." The life of the mind is important here, at least to some people. It is special to be among people who feel intimately connected to the place where they live.

While your college town will always be the same in your memory, the truth is that it changes without you. You change without it. Lately, Logan and I have had to start entertaining plans for the future, and the fact that they might not include this place makes me sad. If/when we ever have to leave Waco, you can bet I'll be looking for another college town to call home.

What the Mormons are getting right

Mom and Dad, if you're reading this, I am not converting. Mormons just have been on my mind a lot lately, particularly the way they do family.

I say "do" not to be trendy, but because it literally seems like being a part of a family is something active for them. Something you put a lot of effort into. Of course they aren't the only ones who value family, but when I look around at the way people are actually living,  the Mormons are putting the rest of the world to shame.

Even in the shadow of Baylor where the marriageable age is pretty low compared to the national average, family in the sense of having your own family still doesn't get a lot of air-time, Maybe it's because it seems like a lot of responsibility. Or financially impractical. Or (more likely) something reserved for older people.

I wish there was a cooler word for "parent." One that made it seem hip and exciting. To be honest, I don't identify with that word yet. It brings up images of bad magazines you'd only read in a doctor's office and petrified french fries under the seat of your minivan.

Even amongst friends, I feel sort of hesitant to admit that yes, we actually wanted to have a baby. On one income. While Logan is in law school. I'm afraid it makes us weird. I still get the impression that the day-care woman thinks I don't know what I'm doing, and the only friends I can turn to for baby advice are in their thirties. 

Logan looking like a highschooler with his backpack at the hospital. 

We're all on a different timeline, and I totally get that. I love my single friends and friends without kids. Ellis is getting quite good at napping through happy hour. Still, I'm sure that everyone can see straight through my innocent "You look great holding a baby!" - the classically shameless ploy that really means I feel kind of lonely in my motherhood. 

This isn't a soapbox; more like another subconscious effort to try and convince people my age that being a parent is fun. And a way of formulating the idea that I want to take being part of a family seriously, both my new one and my old one. 

So in conclusion, I'm not sure what my conclusion is. Other than that I appreicate the Mormons for unabashedly diving into these waters with me!

Why the Halcyon (Can this be my grown-up Xanga?)

OK-- I freely admit that I liked the days of Xanga, and I wish it was still cool. It is so fascinating to peek inside your friends' heads to see what is rattling around in there. I feel honored when people have the guts to put something real out there and trust me enough to let me read it. Lately, though, I haven't been brave enough to do any of that myself.

Writing is freaking hard, but words have to be seen, or at least have the chance of being seen, to be alive. I think the threat of someone else's eyes has a magic effect on the words we end up choosing. They suddenly mean more. They're our fingerprints.

So, in short, I'm starting this thing. It's more for my own use than anything else, so please don't think I'm vain. It's been years (lord!) since I've actually been required to write anything, so I'm way out of practice. But I'm tired of pretending I don't care about words. I want to know more about this life I'm living, and this seems like a decent way to go about discovering it. That sounds like a selfish reason to start a blog, but I'm going to give it a go anyways.

I love the ancient halcyon legend-- a bird rumored to build its nest on the open sea, with the power to calm wind and waves. Time holds its breath while the halcyon guards its home. Happy times, bright and golden, defiant of threatening storms. 

Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs
really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

-Walt Whitman