Fish Out of Water

After being in denial for the past four months that I have officially left Washington, D.C., I finally got a good glimpse of what my new life will be like in Del Rio, Texas (pop. 40,000). Shawn, Shawn's dad, and I started unpacking the new boxes in our lovely new home in our new town. I have to say that the house really is beautiful. I seriously lucked out in marrying someone with similar taste. And I think when we have it all landscaped, it will be a wonderful haven.

The problem for me is the town. 40,000 isn't tiny, I realize. Frankly, that's the size of a decent college campus. The issue is that the closest BIG town is San Antonio. A debilitating 2 1/2 hours away. This is not okay. (I realize that it will have to be, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.)

I've done a lot of traveling this summer, spending some time visiting my friends in New York, San Francisco, and back to D.C. For each of these visits, I've stayed with people in the city - in great neighborhoods where I could walk to "stuff." While these trips were great, they made me long for the big city more than ever.

If I'm being fair, I should admit that I've never been a true city girl. I've always been more of a suburbanite. But still - the city was always right there. And the suburbs had their own charm (charm = the great chain stores I frequent, such as Target, Barnes & Noble, World Market, The Gap, etc. etc.). In Del Rio, I will have none of those conveniences. Instead, I will be forced to get comfortable with my nemesis, Wal-Mart. I will have to get used to ordering everything on-line.

It really hit home when I visited my nemesis Sunday, in a mission to find dish soap and a few other goodies for the house. I went through five different aisles before I heard a soul speaking my native tongue. It's not like I haven't heard Spanish spoken in a store before. Whenever I visited my nemesis in Alexandria, VA (during desperate times, of course), I often heard customers speaking Spanish. I don't have a problem with it, really - I don't.

But for the first time in my life, I truly felt in the minority. A fish out of water.