Virginia

I think the problem I'm having with Virginia is I can't find anything to say about it. I've lived here for 11 years now, and I just can't get this place. It's what I dreamed about as a child living in the city of Miami: forests! mountains! four seasons like in all those books I read -- especially autumn! and snow! But as I kept on living here, slowly the dream died.

Maybe if I'd moved to another city I'd feel differently, but I moved to a small town--a "microcity" it is true, with a small, liberal, cultured population--and I feel like all I do is go to work and then go home. At first I traveled around a bit, but then I got a job and either had no time (long hours), no money (low pay), and then I started getting sick, so I ended up stuck indoors most of the time. I still haven't completely recovered from being sick, I think. I'm out of shape, basically, but everything seems so far away, and there is still the no money and no time thing.

I also found that forests, while amazing, are also intimidating, and as a flatlander with acrophobia who has trouble getting on a footstool, mountains and hills are difficult to deal with. Also being semi-housebound for so long has put me back in that mentality I had in Miami where everything seems so far away.

The thing is there is really nothing wrong here. Nothing to complain about -- the weather is usually good, even the winters aren't always awful as long as it doesn't snow heavily. The weather is so good here normally that I complain about it being boring, though when it does go bad it's as bad as anywhere else (one year there was an ice storm that took my job down for a week, though fortunately not my house, and recently there were floods that made me glad I lived on a hill for once). Everything is mostly really peaceful here, which I'm afraid I find boring as hell. I don't know what it is I want from a place, but bucolic peace and quiet in an old town with occasional visits to the (very good) theater nearby turn out not to be it.

I think I just need a change.