Recently my husband and I discussed upgrading our cell phones. Our cell phones were old... bought when we first moved in together, when we didn't text or surf or tweet or write status updates {well... he still won't do half of those... } We needed phones mostly for emergencies.
When we got our phones I transferred my old number to the new matching his and her phones; it was Lucas's first phone {I couldn't believe it myself... in 2004 he got his first cell phone!} and since we were in Massachusetts he got a Massachusetts number. That old cell number was the number that I'd had since the end of college. It was a New Hampshire number.
I always said I would never live in Maine or Massachusetts. Growing up in New Hampshire, for some reason I could not fathom living in the two neighboring states. Anywhere else was fair game, but not those two.
Until I met Lucas. We worked together, in MA, but I was living in NH still. He lived in MA. Within five months I was shaking up in the forbidden state with my love.
So I kept my NH number.
Not because of the people who could get in touch with me, who had my number stashed somewhere for emergencies or drunk dials. But because of a little secret.
I always thought we'd move back to New Hampshire. I thought the move to Massachusetts was going to be temporary, and eventually we'd find ourselves back in the Granite State with land and nice neighbors and mountains and the small coastline and familiarity.
But life has a funny way of working out, and it's now almost six years from when I moved all of my belongings to where my heart was. A little apartment in the ghetto of Salem where music played late into the night and you could reach your next door neighbors if you opened a window and stuck out your arm. Now we're in a bigger place, in a different town, but it's still in Massachusetts.
Lucas has a job that he loves which happens to be close to the city, so we're here for the long haul. I haven't wanted to accept it, but it is what it is. Truthfully, I've grown to actually love this state that we're in. I used to be fearful of the drivers, the accents {yes, they ARE different than in NH} and Route 128.
But now, it feels like home. There is so much to love about this area. The history, the proximity to the city, the ocean, the mountains and cupcakes. I know the back roads like the back of my hand thanks to driving them at all hours to lull children into dreams. I've labored with heavy breath and impatience, holding a belly of contractions, past the commuter rail twice. Both of my children know this state as their home, born at the same hospital, recovered in the same hospital room. We frequent beaches just as breathtaking and expansive as the one where I grew up.
We have memories here, good and bad and real. Laughter and tears and everything in between. This is home.
So long as my children know how to say their R's and I don't have to drive on 128 daily, I think we'll be ok. And when our lease is up next February, I've come to terms with the fact that our new home, in whatever form it takes, will be in Massachusetts.
So when our new upgraded phones their plans came today, they came with new numbers. Both with Massachusetts area codes. After six years, it's about time.
{These pictures have nothing to do with this post, but they are from our day... coincidentally spent in New Hampshire at my inlaws. On the way home thoughts about home and state boarders drifted through my head. NH is a lovely place to visit, but Mass is now our home}