Reflections

1Picture is not related to post, but isn't she cute! In her new robe Gigi made her so she can be just like mommy. She loves it.

Mala headed to Hillsborough again yesterday with her Ammamma and Achacha for the night to do some more visiting. Leaving me to come home to a quiet house on a Friday afternoon and Anil and I an evening completely to ourselves. I of course initially had this sadness/guilty feeling about being away from her on the weekend since our weekends are so precious now that I work. But I will say it was really nice to: come home and put my feet up after work, go out to dinner with my husband without wolfing down our food, not pleading with a 3 year old to eat her dinner, not battling with tooth brushing, then relaxing and watching a movie. Sometimes I wonder what Anil and I ever could have possibly argued about before we had a child...what movie to watch? What dessert to eat? As much as we adore our sweet little girl, there is no doubt a little one adds stress on the marriage. During dinner we actually talked, not about fairies, or princesses, or crayons. We talked about our past and future. This is what I'm actually leading up to in my rambling blog post.
We were talking about our life in 2006/2007, specifically our first year in Boston. Oh how our lives have changed. We moved to Boston officially the day after we got married into this tiny and terrible little apartment. I'm not sure on the exact sq footage, but I'm going to guess about 500. The kitchen was about the size of our current kitchen table with no dishwasher and a stove that was just about useless due to its inconsistent heating. Our hot water did not even stay hot long enough for one person (girl) to take a nice shower that included leg shaving. Our den was so small that the futon stuck out into the hall, causing you to bang your hip frequently when you walked by. No parking spot included and no overnight on-street parking allowed, our parking spot was about a 1/2 mile away. Laundry was in the same building, but you had to walk outside our door and go one door down and into that basement to get to it (lots of fun on our icy steps and sidewalks). I absolutely hated my job in the O.R. that took me about 1hr by 2 different trains to get to. Anil did not like dental school and was wondering what the hell he had signed himself up for. We did not have a shovel or snow boots, either of us. And this beautiful apartment and lifestyle all for the bargain price of $1250/month. Just slightly less than we spend on rent now.
I can't imagine my reaction then if you had showed me a picture of what our lives are like now. I probably would have cried. Don't get me wrong, I did not hate Boston. In fact, March of 2007 we moved into a great apartment, we made friends, I got used to my job, and we started to really enjoy Boston. Life got 10 million times better. But I just think about how different our lives are now...January days that are 75 degrees, a 5 minute commute to a job that I enjoy and a residency program Anil loves. A yard that the dog and kid can run in. Our car is parked right out in front of our door for goodness sakes and we haven't had to shovel it out of the drive in the 1.5 years we've lived here.
Boston has amazing history, culture, and city life. It will forever hold a special place in my heart and I will always be thrilled to go and visit. But Charlotte is easy. So so so easy. And easy is what we need in our lives right now.