Old Beginnings

Here I am, staying in some kind of shopper's Mecca outside Nashville.  And I'm looking through my rental car windshield at everything, wearing the "Could-this-be-my-next-home?" lens.  Only this time, it's every place I've ever lived.  It's Christiana and Broad Ripple.  It's Mason and King of Prussia.  I figure, why not take a few hours and get all that shopping done, now that I'm finally alone and can go buy all those things I was too distracted to shop for, with a toddler and stroller with me all the time.  But without all those distractions I have an immediate and profound realization that I don't actually need anything.  And besides, everything I'm seeing is junk anyway.  And I start to feel lost, in this town I've lived in a hundred times before.  As I drive back to my hotel I'm strangely aware of Chic Wigs and The Honeybaked Ham Store.  And I just don't know if I can do this again.