After spending three years in the city that never sleeps (or shuts up), I’ve recently made a move back to the small town of my childhood. The reasons for this are mostly too depressing to go into (New York City isn’t known for being easy on the wallet or mind), but now that I’ve been here for a few months and foresee myself staying for a few more, I can’t help but notice how interesting / scary / sweet / comfortable / paralyzing Suburbia really is.

Teenagers Got It Wrong

When you’re growing up in a place like this, you don’t really hear or see it. Mostly you’re asleep to everything around you until you decide you hate all of it, and then you leave, grasping onto college or a one way ticket to Somewhere New, promising everyone you’ll never look or come back. To a teenager, Suburbia is just boring. It’s one movie theater and awkward PTA dances and diving behind a locker whenever you pass your mom (the new substitute!) in the hallway at school. Suburbia ain’t anything. And that’s why you leave.

But when you grow up a little and look at the neatly lined-up houses, manicured lawns, SUVS, and strangely similar dress (what’s with all the matching velour tracksuits?), you begin to realize you’re smack dab in one of the most interesting places ever created.

There’s no sarcasm here – Suburbia is interesting. Just check out your local bookstore or theater; we’re constantly creating art on what it means to live in a place manufactured to feel safe, clean, and comfortable. And the funny thing? Most of that art is just the opposite of safe, clean, or comfortable. Artists are a little afraid of cul-de-sacs and small town politics. Afraid and mystified.

The Paradoxical Suburbs

Why? Because Suburbia is interesting. It’s a paradox. On one hand, you have the American Dream; sprinklers and a 2-car garage and a good high school and family meals around a spacious kitchen table. On the other hand, you’ve got this strangely constricting atmosphere of sameness (must.not.rock.the.boat…), an almost paralyzing need to fit in with the Jonses and hide whatever threatens to embarrass you in front of your neighbors or fellow bleacher-mates at the local high school football game. If you are different, you will stand out, and you will know it.

Is it possible to be happy in Suburbia? Of course. Is it also possible to be tortured and closeted? Of course. This is where that mystifying push and pull comes from, that scary / sweet / comfortable / paralyzing feeling. This is where the art and emotion and humor comes from. Suburbia is interesting.

They don’t know I do it, but I listen to the women at the gym. I listen to the families in the grocery store. I drag my feet around the mall, doing my best to catch any snippet of conversation possible. I listen, and I smile, and frown, and bite my lip, and feel the need to hug and the desire to punch. I go through a gauntlet of emotions just picking up some cereal or new sneakers.

Suburbia is not boring. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I know my 17-year-old self was completely wrong when she believed nothing interesting ever happens here.

Honey, Suburbia is the definition of interesting.

Tell us. What has Suburbia done to you? Taught you? Given you? Enough of those practiced smiles over the hedges; tell your friends and neighbors what you really think.

[Photo by ||!prliignore2||]