What I'm Learning Living in Indiana

Yet another list:

1. It's much colder here than it was in Connecticut. But, it's also much prettier than it was in Connecticut.
2. "Urgent," "as soon as possible," and "immediately" mean very different things out here than they do in the Northeast.
3. Except for maybe the winds, nearly everything is kinder and gentler here.
4. Going to Target or the mall here? Not nearly the harrowing experience that it was in lower Fairfield County. Sometimes it's even fun.
   
5. I loath being a landlord. (Come on, real estate gods! Just fix the market in Connecticut! And you only have to fix it long enough for me to sell my condo for what I paid for it. Prove your worth, real estate gods! How many more exclamation points do I have to use?!)
6. I probably wouldn't mind being a landlord so much if my tenants were just a wee bit less, um, pester-y. Or if this whole rental thing were a nice investment endeavor I had on the side, just for fun, because, you know, that's so completely my personality. But no. It's just annoying.
   
7. I don't think I've enjoyed being alone so much as recently.
8. I also don't think I've ever been so lonely as recently, which is probably saying something, given the past year of my life.
9. The post office system here in Ft. Wayne is astonishingly inefficient. There's one set of post offices where you go to pick up packages. You can't do anything else there, so don't even try. There's another set of post offices where you go to mail stuff, buy stamps, etc. I don't suggest trying to pick up packages there, as you'll just be disappointed, and then sent across town to the other useless post office.
   
10. It is nearly impossible to find good live music around here. I'm getting the sense that even Indianapolis doesn't have much. This is probably the thing I miss most about the Northeast - access to great live music, in great little bars and concert halls, nearly any time I want.
    
11. I do not miss living in Connecticut at all. Much like when I lived in Manhattan, living in Connecticut became something that was harder than it should have been, with little spiritual benefit.
    
12. But I miss my friends terribly, and doubt I will ever make friends here that meet the quality of friends I had there.
13. Teaching Julia to "high-five" and to touch her nose when the "horn on the bus goes beep-beep-beep" have been more personally satisfying than any website launch, strategic planning session, or new business win I was ever involved in, at any agency, in the past 5+ years.
14. But I still worry about spending my time freelancing and hanging out with my niece when I should be working full time, and I wish the never-ending interview process would end so that I could become a minimally-fulfilled, super-stressed worker bee again. Because, of course, isn't that how we're conditioned to understand our value and worth to society and our families? And what is my identity if not as a worker bee? For all intents and purposes I'm not a wife anymore, I've never been a mother, I'm currently not a full-time contributor to society. So what am I?
15. But after 2 months of spending weekend mornings with Miss J, eating our breakfast of waffles and bananas and then reading books and playing with Weebles, it's going to be hard to go back to a life where my weekend mornings might be spent in an office, catching up on all the work that I didn't get completed during the week. I didn't like it when that was how my weekend mornings were spent before; I can't imagine I'm going to like it another time around, especially if there are no Weeble Wobbles or messy banana-handed toddlers in my day.