Our Downtown Community

For years our days were devoted to work and our growing boys. Baseball, band and other school functions kept us on the go all week every week and on many weekends too. Our middle son played on travel baseball teams, so our weekends were spent in other towns throughout North Carolina rooting for him and his teammates.
On the rare days and evenings that we had ‘free time’, cleaning or lawn-mowing or getting caught up on laundry and shopping became our primary endeavors. We didn’t have a lot of time to make friends, or to maintain the few friendships that we had. Our schedules orbited around the full schedules of our boys, and if adult friends wanted to hang out, they often found it to be difficult logistically to meet up with us when we were free to be up for some ‘grown-up time’.
In those days, too, we lived on the ‘outskirts’ of town. We could walk to a restaurant, or to the baseball diamonds that were basically in our backyard, but otherwise we had to hop in the car to go anywhere else.
When it became necessary to move to a bigger house, it was hard for all of us to leave that good home. The many special memories we created there along with the schedules and routines that had become so ingrained in us would be difficult to reproduce anywhere else.
Our new home, from the perspective we all shared at that time, had some nice perks however. One of the first things our youngest and I did, upon ownership, was to walk to the Library, to see how long it would take to get there and back. Seven minutes at a good pace. And, little did I know then, that that would be a time I would seek to beat everyday, four times a day.
Soon, we noticed that the wine bar downtown was only a few short blocks away. Other attractions were opening left and right, all along our town’s main downtown street.
Concerts in the park on Sunday evenings, antique shops as far as the eye could see, and strangely enough- other adults!
Perhaps it is ironic that once we moved closer to downtown, we began to meet with like-minded people, who up until recently, had been heavily invested in their own children’s lives. Suddenly finding themselves freed up from the bustle of youth-filled houses, they began to seek out grown-up time of their own.
We are so excited to hang out with our friends and spend time with them that our schedules are just as full now as they were way-back-when. Only now, instead of driving around to baseball games and band practices, we are spending time downtown, or at each other’s homes, having dinner, creating more memories and in general having a ton of fun.
This is not to say that our lives no longer orbit around our boys’ lives; they still do. But as they’ve grown they’ve become less dependent on us for rides, less involved in school activities, and in general are responsible and capable young men. They are doing remarkably well in everything that they do. But, what really thrills me, is how much our grown-up friends welcome and love our boys. And we love our friends’ children as well. It’s an interesting development, and a thrilling one.
I’m so glad to be part of a community that is as nurturing, supportive and as fun as this one is.
I do miss the old house and I will always remember all of the great memories from when our boys were small. I even miss weekends at baseball parks. But I’m so glad things worked out the way they did. Our downtown community is awesome!