DECADE IN THE DOMICILE

Chez Elisson, October 2006.

Today marks the tenth year of our residence in Chez Elisson, Atlanta. It was ten years ago that we signed the closing papers on this, our current home.

It’s the longest time we’ve ever spent in one house as a married couple, the previous record having been our immediately prior stint in west Houston. That one lasted seven-and-a-half years.

[For that matter, it’s the longest time I’ve lived in a single house since I was a kid growing up in my childhood home on Lawn Guyland, where we moved when I was nine months old. We spent the next fourteen years there.]

Seven houses in thirty-one years, an average of four-and-a-half years in each house. That’s what happens when you sign on for a career with a big multinational corporation, and they don’t come much bigger than the Great Corporate Salt Mine. But we decided many years ago that once we reached our fifties, we were not going to still be traipsing about the country like all too many of my Corporate Colleagues, trying to reestablish ourselves in a new and unfamiliar landscape at the whim of the Salt Mine. And so once we got back to Atlanta after an absence of twelve years, we dug our heels in. It was our favorite among all the places we had lived, and we wanted to stay.

Ten years.

A lot has changed here in ten years. More traffic, more growth. New shopping centers sprouting up to replace land once used for driving ranges, farm stands, and Christmas tree saleslots. New homes with price tags in the seven figures.

We’ve changed, too. Ten years ago, Elder Daughter had completed her freshman year at Boston University, and the Mistress of Sarcasm was midway through her high school career. Unlike me, they never had a chance to get too accustomed to one place growing up, although their Rootless Upbringing inculcated in them both a certain adaptability that I envy. Now they’re Grown-Ups, out on their own. And we’ve had the chance to reconnect with our old friends while making new friends, sinking our Familial Roots into the community.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the next ten years will bring...kein ayin hora.