I Live on a Street
I just realized this last night. I lived on a street as a child; the house I grew up in wasn’t on a main road, but was at least one of the primary routes through our suburban neighborhood. It was a street, cars going up and down occasionally. That was the last time I lived on a street. In middle school we moved to a different neighborhood and the house was at the end of a cul-de-sac. In retrospect, it was probably high traffic as cul-de-sacs go—our neighbors always seemed to have more cars than people to drive them—but no one was ever driving past my house.
Then it was off to college! Two years of dorms, then a year back at home in the cul-de-sac. Another semester in dorms, a semester in an apartment for an internship—my first off-campus, on-my own, living experience—then another three years of apartment living on and off campus until graduation. There was a second internship that technically put me back on a street, I stayed with some friends in a quiet neighborhood near the job, but it was almost a cul-de-sac. The rest of college, it was all parking lots outside my window, all the time.
Graduation! Apartment. Parking lot. Then a great condo, close to everything, but still, parking lot. Technically this parking lot did pass through the complex and become a road, but I know a parking lot when I see one. And then I moved here.
I moved into a townhouse that’s even greater than the condo. It’s even closer to everything. I’ve been here nearly two months. I’ve heard fire trucks screaming by the house late at night. I can hear it when my roommate pulls into the driveway. But it didn’t click with me till I was lying in bed last night, it’s because I live on a street now. Actually, I’m on the corner of two streets. This is the street-est I’ve ever been! I’m streets ahead! I don’t even know why I like it, but I do. I suppose the hum of traffic might be soothing while I’m falling asleep, but I was never the white-noise-needing kind of sleeper, so I can’t believe that’s what makes it so cool. It just is. I can look out my window and watch people, cars, and even the occasional foot or bike race go by. I can walk all over downtown from here, and for some reason it just feels better that when I step out my door, that’s it, I’m already somewhere.
I don’t have to walk through a little bit of nowhere to get started—out of the parking lot, to the end of the cul-de-sac, out of the subdivision, off campus—I live on a street.
