Stranger

In my daily drive back and forth from work, I have begun to listen to Bill Bryson narrate his book I'm a Stranger Here Myself. It didn't initially start out as a book, rather a weekly column in a British magazine. He is from Iowa, but moved to London, married, and had two kids. Twenty or so years later, he returned to the US with his family and they settled in New Hampshire. The weekly article he wrote included his musings and noted differences between England and America. The irony is that it had been so long since he lived here that he felt as though he was a foreigner. It got me thinking about our own situation...
Since we moved up here to New York, we have constantly been amazed at how different things are from what we are used to. The other day we had a conversation about the various things that we missed from living in Tennessee. As I sit here in the lobby at Suzy's school I have become aware of the things I will not miss when we eventually leave New York.
I will not miss the insanely rude people of Westchester County, annoying and loud women with atrocious accents (cf. The Nanny), NY drivers that do not know how to merge, NY drivers who are oblivious to other drivers, NY drivers in general, everyone's sense of entitlement (when most people deserve none of what they expect), the way other people make me treat them, the inadequacy of the grocery stores, price of gasoline, cost of utilities, rent, let me say that again - RENT, prices in general, everyone's materialism, or the dreary weather.
I just hope that when we return to the south, we won't feel like strangers!