I am now a suburbs person and my life is probably over

Last weekend, my wife and I bit the bullet and made the move to the suburbs. We bought a new home a couple months ago and to be honest the whole thing happened very quickly and much faster than we had anticipated. You see, just a year prior, we had purchased a home in Charlestown, which is a part of Boston infamously featured in the movie “The Town.” The new spot was considered an upgrade in terms of size and it removed us a little bit from being downtown in Boston. It felt like a perfect move for a relatively young couple with its first child on the way. The plan was to live there and then move to the ‘burbs eventually if and when we anticipated a second kid.

We moved to a town called Wellesley, which by all intents and purposes is one of the nicer places to wind up in Massachusetts. Many people refer to it as “Swellesley.” On our moving day, a couple of (M)assholes were parked in the spot we had permitted for our moving truck. I had to call the police to come by and help us find these individuals so they could move their cars for our truck. While making small talk with the police officer – who was talking about “cahs” and “bahs” – he asked where we were moving to. When I told him the answer, all he said was “La Dee Da!” I felt a little ashamed to be leaving The Town behind.

Leaving for the ‘burbs was something I figured was inevitable someday but still a tough pill to swallow for someone who has always lived in a city in my adult life. I grew up in a small town, so even going to Princeton for college felt like a big deal. I believe there were more students on the campus than in the town I grew up in, and that’s before we even got to the population of town citizens itself. After that, I spent my years in Boston and New York City and then back to Boston again. There was a brief stint in Cape Cod during the COVID era, but considering that everyone was basically sheltered in place during that time, I don’t think that really counts.

Life as a suburb guy is…different. Growing up, I remember on the weekends my father would talk glowingly about his trips to the town dump to drop off our trash and recycling. I never understood why he looked forward to these trips so much. I’ve now come to realize that there are two factors involved. The first is that it was a routine, a ritual he could proudly check off his list every weekend to feel a sense of achievement. The second is that he probably looked forward to getting out of the house and not having to deal the hells of raising children. All this to say, I have already made three trips to the town dump, where I am mastering the difference between chipboard and cardboard, paper and cardboard paper, and the fact that styrofoam is treated like trash. The more materials I have to sift through the better. I get to feel even more smug about how I am saving the environment and I worry less about the wandering eyes of my older colleagues who may or may not be judging my every move.

Upon returning to my home, I am surprised by the hum of a circular robot thing called iShark wandering around my living room. I guess it is cleaning the house, collecting dust and cat hair in its wake. Someone is in the yard mowing grass. It might be the landscaper. It might be a burglar posing as the landscaper. I’m not totally sure. What I do know is that there are a myriad of things I now need to worry about. Like the lawn being mowed. Or the bees that have congregated in the side yard bushes. Or how we will get the security system up and running. Or why the hallway light is broken. The list goes on.

What frees my mind of all these ills are my trips to the gym. I have always enjoyed doing workout classes, usually HIIT classes. In the city, I had a couple gyms I went to all the time. I made many friends at these places and it became a part of my social life. I still go from time to time but the commute is a bit of a buzzkill now. 

In any event, I am starting to get the impression that I will not be making gym friends in the ‘burbs. Unless those friends are geriatric women. I’ve made the acquaintance of a few of those so far. Occasionally, I drive into the city to see my old gym friends for a workout. Driving into the city is its own adventure. You need to figure out your mode of transportation and plan accordingly. 

On the plus side, there is a lot more space. Since I work from home, I like to mix things up. Most of the time, I work in my office. But sometimes I’ll bounce around to the basement. The basement is my man cave. This is where I go to watch sports on my recliner. 

But the best part of all is seeing in action the reason we moved here in the first place: our daughter, Josephine. She’s got her own nursery and then her own playroom in the loft, in addition to the playpen down in the den. She’s thriving more than ever with all the places to play. And thinking of this being the home she will grow up in and remember forever brings me a certain sense of joy, even if taking the trash to the dump is a fairly distant second place in terms of excitement.