Back in Mo Co

Mo Co is short for Montgomery County, Maryland, statistically one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. Ugh, that fact makes me shudder. Without a doubt, I've benefited from the safe streets, beautiful landscape, and easy access to restaurants, shops, and banks, and proximity by car and metro to the nation's capital. While in many ways a participant, I get overwhelmed by the crowded streets, the confiscation of spacious farms to serve the causes of suburbia, locals teens driving the latest Hummers and soccer moms with Suburbans polluting the air, among other things.

I was fortunate to be raised on one of the few acre plots in the area where I don't share my front or back yard with another home. Trees surround the lot and we share the dead end street with four other homes. Through the woods I can barely see the giant florescent cross of the National Lutheran Home across from our street. In those woods are memories of stick forts and capture the flag, foxhunts and hideouts. The pond in our front yard served many a purpose from mud baths, to tadpoles for science class in elementary school, to picnics in the small metal rowboat. Oddly, one of my comfort sounds from home is that of crickets and frogs' mating calls.

Home for me is the leaves tumbling in the air in the fall season and taking walks along the serene and beautiful C&O canal only 10 minutes away. For many of my friends, being home means reconnecting with childhood and high school friends. On that note, I can't really relate. It's been 7 years since I lived at home and I didn't leave much behind. My one friend from HS now lives and works in San Francisco. All my friendships are spread across the states and the globe - in China, in Ecuador, Texas, California, New York, New Mexico, Pennsylvania.

Now that I'm back and living with my parents again I'm going to need to establish a new meaning of home - one that goes beyond bonding with my parents and reaches out to the community. At this point I still feel like a young student visiting my parents on vacation from classes, staying close to home and spending time with my parents. I find it strange how easy it is to slip back into the little me I once was when in this home - bound to the activities of the family and common habits - meals, errands, church, swing dancing (yes, not the average family activity but it was for us!), and sleeping in until 9:00am.

So much has happened in my life and in my mind since I left seven year ago. I'm an adult, right? Haven't I moved beyond those habits and activities? I fear that somehow I'll slip back into the me before I took the timid yet hopeful steps to go to a boarding school in St. Louis. While I want to preserve the simplicity of my childhood, I want to expand it's meaning to include healthy activity and involvement in the area and in Washington, D.C. I don't want to be a visitor anymore, but a resident.

In the two weeks since I've been home, there's been much relaxing, reading, and rearranging my living space. I've so put my feelers out already and got hired by Professionals for Non-Profits, a group that places professionals in temporary positions in non-profit agencies in the Washington, D.C. area. It's the perfect step for me if I want to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to work internationally or domestically in the non-profit sphere. Socially, I've managed to preserve my passion for dance and have been to a few milongas, or tango social parties. I joined a gym a few days ago also. Now I just need to meet people!