Being in love with where you live


I just love it here. I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area. And I'm just crazy about where I live.  And I mean in that kind of way that makes people wonder about me. I want to be together forever with the place I where live. 'Til death do us part. I write love-letters to the place where I live (this is going to be a real mushy one), I spend hours just marveling at how lucky I am, I look at pictures of the place where I live.

Of course, not everybody feels the same way about where they live. They grumble, make excuses, and put up with it. I've known a lot of these people, and they make me sad. When I ask "why are you here?" I want to hear that they've found the place that they love, where they want to make a home, not just because "it's where a particular job is, or because they need to be there for some other reason". I want to hear about romance. Let's see, I guess that would be Cityramce? or Placeromance?
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My little brother lives in the Bay Area of California. And he is absolutely in love! To the point where he puts up with stuff that I can't imagine, like how insanely expensive everything is there. He loves hiking around there, and he will often call me just to tell me what he's looking at, standing somewhere in San Francisco. He just loves it there, and I'm so happy for him.

I chose Phoenix. I left Minneapolis as quickly as I could, right after I bought a car, and figured out which way "west" was (I'm still directionally-challenged, but I can follow a map). Yeah, I know we broke up for a few years while I lived in Los Angeles, but when we got together again, we knew we'd stay together forever.

If you love the city where you live, no one needs to tell you how wonderful it is. It's not too big, not too small, and the weather is glorious. It has the best restaurants, it has the best teams. It's home, and it's a wonderful place to be.

I like it here.

Image at the top of the post: Flying over Thomas Mall in the 1960s, looking towards Camelback Mountain. If the mountains of Phoenix tug at your heart-strings, you're home.

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