Ever heard someone say you can't go back?

Living in Staunton was the happiest time in either of our lives. We were surrounded by friends and people who loved us dearly. We had jobs that we liked working with people we enjoyed, we had the best apartment that everyone always wanted to hang out at, we had our bar where our drinks were handed to us without having to even ask what we wanted, and we could walk down the street at any time and see people we knew. When we moved away we were desperately nostalgic and frequently drove three hours after dinner just for drinks at our favorite bar. Our vacations would simply be to get a room at the Microtel in Staunton for the weekend and just visit with people who were begging us to come back and complaining they didn't see us enough. So when things weren't going our way up north we moved back to our home. We were even lucky enough to move back to our same apartment. I got the same job that I loved working with the people I loved. Carol got a job at the place she loved to work as well. It seemed like we had picked up exactly where we left off and that year away just never existed.

But something strange happened when we moved away: everyone else moved on with their lives as well. Our drinking buddy who was with us every week down at the bar got engaged and bought a house and we haven't seen him in a year...before we even moved back. Carol's party friends are no more as well with one having moved to NYC and the other having a baby. But the main reason we moved back was for her nephew, Matt, an emotionally troubled teenager on the verge of living on his own who can barely cut his own meat. A boy who doesn't even realize or care that he has destroyed his aunt's relationship with the few friends she has had for twelve years because he wanted to throw a fit.

So now here we sit, coming to the end of our year lease on our dream apartment, part two, and everything that we came back here for, everything and everyone that we loved, has changed. Even our apartment has lost some of its glow with our dreadful downstairs neighbors. So what do we do? We can't afford to move back up north and as yet there is no reason to as I haven't been able to find a job up there either. We talked about moving to a place cheaper than our current apartment but Carol lovingly reminded me, "Nobody will rent to you if you don't have a job." Maybe she's right and maybe we are stuck here no matter how expensive it is until I find a job. Not that it is a terrible place to be stuck, but we have been wanting to disappear from 90% of the people in this area and moving would help that. We picture Jereme showing up to the apartment and knocking on the door and some man comes downstairs telling him he's lived here for months now. It amuses us. We had talked about moving away entirely...and it is still a thought, but all we have to do is drive outside on a sunny day and realize that we are still in love with this place and we still think of it as home. And if everything we came back for is gone, but we still can't imagine leaving, then there has to be something else here that is worth staying for. We just have to find it.