I Can Do Positive, Too

I know I just posted about how I need to be a pessimist. I still do; however, I’m trying to find the silver lining in moving back to my hometown.

Well, first of all I can use that great Bruce Springsteen song as my theme song.  I’m not a huge fan but that song popped into my mind.

It will be nice to be around family.  I moved a year after getting married.  There were about a total of 8 years where I lived approximately 2 hours away but that’s the closest I’ve been since our first move. Maybe I’ll finally get to have those Sunday dinners.  It should be interesting, too, to see how this whole “relying on family” works.  My mom will be gone in the winter but aside from those few months I’ll have a mom, a brother, a sister-in-law, and a niece all who can help out on occasion.

Restaurants.  Whoreville is a town of around 50,000.  That doesn’t seem so small to me but there are a lot of restaurants in my hometown that Whoreville doesn’t have- Culver’s (love those butter burgers and that custard!), my favorite Mexican restaurant, Panda Express, Olive Garden, Red Robin, Steak -n-Shake, my favorite pizza place.

My sister-in-law has been awesome about being proactive- offering to help me get a job, offering to help both of my kids get a job, calling up to the high school to talk to the cheerleading coach.  She even put a message on Facebook asking if anyone had a student that would be a junior in the Honors program at Rock Star’s new high school and I believe there are plans to have a small get together once we get out there so Rock Star can meet some people.

We will have access to decent movie theaters again. There’s nothing wrong with the theater we have here except it’s expensive.  Expensive tickets.  Expensive refreshments.  There is a fantastic self-serve theater about 10 miles from my mom’s house where I can buy 3 movie tickets, 3 popcorns, 3 drinks AND candy for around $25.  In addition to that, I have found that most of the theaters in that area have great prices for matinees.

I’m not a huge shopping mall fan but my daughter is and we have a nice mall out there.  Rock Star is a huge fan of Forever 21 and the one at the mall is huge.  We also have access to a Charming Charlie’s which I don’t shop at a lot, but like with Forever 21, they have some great sales on sunglasses.

Another silver lining is how the kids have taken this.  I knew Picasso didn’t care if we left or not but I was really expecting Rock Star to be much more devastated.  Instead she seems practical.

She won’t have to sit out a year after graduation now.  Taking a year off isn’t the worst thing that can happen but I felt bad that she had to do it.  Plus, if she wasn’t in school that could easily affect any agreements in a custody order.

My kids will both graduate from my former high school.  It wasn’t exactly the legacy I was hoping for but hey, this is a positive post.

I’ll file this one away under “Fat Chance” but if CF is ordered to pay some hefty support the kids and I will be living pretty well.

I know the town, although after being gone for so long things have changed and I sometimes need to ask which is the quickest route.

I still have friends there, plus I’m more centrally located to all the places I’ve ever lived before.  I’m not saying it would be a quick trip to get back out west but it’s no longer 30 hours.  And hopefully I’ll be able to send Rock Star back here for big events if she wants to attend.  When you’ve had to drive over 20 hours to get back home 10 hours doesn’t seem so bad.  Anything that can be done in a day’s drive seems reasonable.

I have a walking buddy waiting for me and depending upon my schedule and my finances maybe my mom and I can go to the gym together.

Both kids are close to their cousins so they will have a ready made friend.  Picasso and my nephew are only 10 months apart and they have a lot of the same interests.  Despite living 1500 miles apart for 8 years and then 600 miles apart these last 2 years, they’ve practically grown up together.  We’ve spent lots of holidays, summers and vacations together.  And the two girls- in spite of the 3 year age difference I know my niece considers Rock Star to be one of her best friends; they FaceTime almost every day.

My mom goes out to dinner with her cousins once a month and I think she’ll let me tag along.

It’s not for certain but I’m hoping I will be in a much better position to buy Rock Star a car and to help her out with those expenses.

This one is kind of stupid but hey, don’t shit on my list!  I like the show Supergirl.  They moved it off of CBS and are running it on the CW next year.  This town does not get the CW.  I’m fairly certain that my home town does.  Ergo, I can still watch Supergirl.

There are probably a few more things that I could consider a silver lining but they aren’t coming to me right now.  I’m pretty proud of myself for even coming up with this much.  Until next time…