Current Pitstop Northern Virginia

I am finding out that I did not fully understand what I was signing up for when I agreed to move to the suburbs of northern Virginia from my 1/6th of a trailer in West Virginia to be with my boyfriend while he finished college.

I was working as a whitewater raft guide in West Virginia when I met my now boyfriend, we'll call him Ted. It was March, and I was training and he was coming down for play trips before the season started. We hit it off right away and grew closer over the summer, surviving my sister's wedding and two deaths together, my grandfather and his. When he asked me to come live with him after the season, I agreed and assumed things could only get better after sharing a twin bed for 8 months in a trailer that had been split into 6 rooms of which we shared one. There were many times that there was so much clutter and so little space that there was absolutely no way for us to not touch each other. Needless to say, we had some tense times.

Then I moved here. I have lived in a variety of places including Yellowstone National Park, Death Valley, CA, Billings, MT, and Nashville, TN, but none of these places prepared me for this, the suburbs. I have seen things here that I could not imagine there was ever a need or want for, but day after day I learn of something new. There are also so many fears of things going wrong, almost to a point of wanting something to go wrong so that it can be fixed. I listen to Ted's sister who is in high school talk of all her friends who are in counseling and rehab because of drinking problems. Drinking problems? Anywhere else, it is called being a teenager. Your parents discipline you and you live and learn from it. No need for counseling.

I am finding out that I do not fit in well here in the suburbs, but I am learning a lot and trying. I recently whitened my teeth and even received a facial last week. However, during that facial I did get lectured by a complete stranger for being a college graduate and waiting tables. I let that one go, I am sure she had my best interest in mind.

So we will call this a learning tool for me as to why I see some of the things I see here.