South Orange County – No Way

Transcript

I never in my life thought that I would be living in South Orange County, California. Grew up in the South Bay. I moved a lot. Lived overseas. Lived on the East Coast.
But, a lot of my life was spent in the South Bay LA, and even that, Hermosa Beach, I found to be conformist. I would go with my friends to North Hollywood, not North Hollywood, but to Hollywood to, you know, go to clubs. And, we would go to West LA to see foreign films. And, you know, we were the artsy fartsy, liberal, whatever, progressives.
And, I just never would have considered it. The only reason to go to Orange County, I thought, was to go to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm.
Live there? Oh, my gosh, why would you do that? And, here I am living in Mission Viejo, and I like it. It’s, of course, I’m at a different place and time in my life. I’m a mom, a stay-at-home mom with a son. This is a good place to raise a kid. There are lots of resources available. Um. And, there’s physical beauty. We have mountains. We have parks. We have beaches. It’s beautiful.
I’m not into the every house looking the same, and the whole homeowners’ association conformity, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, not my thing. But, I can tolerate it.
My neighbors are basically just middle class families with middle class values raising their kids the best that they can and wanting the best for their families. I, too, that’s where I am in my life.
As a young adult could I have lived here? Never. I would haved died of boredom. I fled to the Bay Area where I felt more at home.
But my life is different now. And, I’m married to a fairly conservative man. And, I like that. I like his conservative values, that he won’t stray. He values marriage and monogamy. And, he values me, his son. He’s a good father, a good provider.
And I’m playing the role of a stay-at-home mom. Also something I never could really see myself doing, but God kind of made it so I had to stay home. Brought me down to my knees with an illness that made it difficult for me to jug [juggle] family and career. Made it difficult for me to take care of myself.
So, here I am, on disability, taking care of my kid, doing my best. Even that can be overwhelming. There have been times when I couldn’t even get up the motivation to make dinner. My husband would pick up take-out on his way home. Plenty of times he still does that. But there were times when I really just couldn’t cope.
Parenting is challenging. I parent a challenging child, and I’m wife to a challenging husband. Life can be hard. Anyway. That’s my drivel for now. Ciao.