Cheers

 "Making your way in the world today, 

Takes everything you got,

Taking a break from all your worries, 

Sure does help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away.

Sometimes you wanna go

Where everybody knows your name.

And their always glad you came.

You wanna be where you can see

Your troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name...."

I left a small town because that feeling that everyone knew my name was too suffocating. The fact that I felt judged every minute of everyday didn't feel like a "me" problem but a "this damm small town" problem.  I didn't want to go through life being judged for whose kid, grandkid, or sibling I was let alone the punk ass teenager I tired on for a few years.

So I left.  I went far enough away that no one knew me, but close enough that I could get home and visit the people that meant the most to me. It was never perfect, there were many moments that I second guessed my decision and certainly more that I thought I didn't go far enough.

But with aging parents, menopause settling in, my own kids growing up, and then this pandemic the fact that I live in "my own world" is slapping me in the face. Hard. It would not only be nice to get away, but to go where everybody knows my name.

My husband, whose family is 5,000 miles away, does an amazing job of building a network, making a home and a name for himself.  When I met him in college there was not a student, administrator, or staff on campus that didn't know his name.  Then we moved to the complete opposite side of this major Metropolitan Tri-State Area {insert Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc theme song here} and before you could say "You are so busted!" everyone on this side of town knew his name.

We don't have any family here, and we do not even see the family that we do live near but maybe several times a year, we don't socialize at all, but everyone knows our name.  We are a living breathing example of being lonely in a crowded room.

No one here can tell stories about growing up with us, or us as awkward teenagers, or even the us when we were first married.  No one has been in my children's lives since they were babies and can speak to them about the fine young men they have grown into.  Grandparents, who were such a vital and incredible part of both our lives, are just an image to our children.

After a year of struggling to balance how best to take care of my parents from a distanced distance, how to help my high school Senior navigate the next chapter without looking or touching it, how to support my husband who can only call his mom everyday and listen to her sob about being locked in her house completely alone, ON TOP OF the rest fo life, work, everyday.....

I'd like to get away. Somewhere I can see- troubles are all the same. I wanna be- where their always glad I came. I think I wanna be,,,,where everybody knows my name.