Green, green, greener

Some may say I “have it all”. (Depends of your definition of having it all, but for many this is it – to others, it’s winning X Factor.)

A happy family, a three bed-semi in the Cotswolds with a family-orientated kitchen and a large garden, two cats, a four-going-on-fourteen son, a husband who works in a fantastically rewarding job, a full-time job doing wordy things, a car (okay, a Daihatsu), nice clothes (lots and lots and lots), hobbies of netball and dancing that I get to do twice a week, a healthy attitude to work and play, a regular 6-week appointment to have my highlights done, size 10 jeans and a 36D bust.

But….I get itchy feet. It happens every three years or so….I need to move on, find something different and exciting. Something not quite so conformist, because having it all makes me want to pretty much de-construct it all and do something that doesn’t mean I’m boring myself into mid-life.

So, we’re going to move to America.

I do not, for one moment, think the grass is greener in the USofA (alleged land of hopes, dreams and gun-ownership) – I just want to taste some different grass, smell it, hear it, see it. 

I live in the Cotswolds and I love my friends and my netball and my Zumba, but this area does not, and I doubt it ever will, rock my world. When I’ve lived abroad before, it’s invited in all my senses and I can close my eyes now and feel the humidity of Gibraltar, recollect the crazy juxtaposed sounds of Moroccan bazaars and Naval ceremonies and taste the salt water splashing over my face whilst speeding over the waves of the Mediterranean. It’s all as clear as day, knowing who I was talking to, what we said, how we felt, what that meant for me then and how it impacts on me now.  That’s what I’m talking about – experience; because real experience enriches me to make me the person I am now, and if I don’t get anymore experiences soon, I’m not going to grow as a person. And that , for me, is pretty damn fricking scary.

I feel it’s my obligation to make sure that the same goes for my son.  Harry needs to feel, taste, smell and hear new sounds, see new images  and discover new places and people with wide, objective eyes; not narrow, subjective eyes. It maketh the person and all that.