Homeowning

A little bit about me:

I'm a single mom and homeowner. My house is small (two bedrooms); I share it with my younger son and two cats. I have a tiny yard where I can grow a few tomatoes and herbs.

But I want to move back to the city.

I live where I do because that's where I could afford to buy a house on my own. I'm in a very poor city north of Boston. I commute into Boston every day for work; I drive to the subway station, take the Orange Line into the city, and take a bus to the stop nearest my job. It takes over an hour most days, and then I reverse the process at the end of the day to get back home. By the end of the week, I'm exhausted.

When my marriage broke up, I moved to a perfect gem of an apartment in Somerville, near Davis Square. I could walk or take public transportation almost everywhere I needed to go. I had only one cat then; my kids stayed with their father in the exurbs until they finished high school. I still have lingering feelings of guilt over that. But I loved my home and my neighborhood. When my daughter graduated from high school, she moved in with me. (Older son had gone directly to college without joining me in the city.) She loved it, too. She went to college in Boston, and has "the hub of the universe" in her IM profile to this day.

Four years ago my ex and I finally sold the house we owned jointly. I took my portion of the proceeds and bought the house where I live now. My younger son joined me here last year, and around the same time, I adopted a second cat. We were crowded for about a month, when my daughter moved to Maryland to attend graduate school. She gave the bedroom to her brother, who had been sleeping in the living room.

Financially I made the right choices. I bought a reasonably-priced house, and I have a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 5.5%. I couldn't get that today. My car is paid off. My son kicks in some of his income to support us. Why rock the boat?

Because I don't feel any connection to the city where I live. Because I'm homesick for my old neighborhood (where I can't afford to buy anything but a tiny condo). Because the commute exhausts me. And because I have no social life and no energy to seek one out.

This summer, my son and I decided that we'd consider moving. My older son lives outside Boston in Arlington, so we started looking at condos there. But the more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to take on the additional financial burden. I'm barely squeaking by even here; I'm not rich by any means, but I'm comfortable. I've got my broadband Internet connection, my family cell phone plan, my Boston Globe and Netflix subscriptions. We can eat out in one of our favorite restaurants once a week (Panera, Chili's, Uno). I've even started buying lunch at work a couple of times a week, instead of bringing it from home. Luxury!

So I considered improving my commute by getting a new car. I currently have a 1999 Saturn SL1, standard shift, and I love it. I also have arthritis in my left knee, the result of an earlier injury and arthroscopic surgery. It'd help me a lot to have an automatic-shift car. A couple of weeks ago, drawn in by the end-of-model-year sales, my older son and I went out car-looking. He succumbed, and now has a brand-new (2007) Honda Civic. He sold his old car (a 1998 Saturn SL2, almost a twin to my car) to his brother; now there are two Saturns parked in my driveway. I decided that once I added on the options I already have (keyless entry, cruise control, just to name two), I couldn't really afford a new car. I also love the control I have in a stick-shift car. It shifts when I want it to, not when some computer inside the car finally decides it's time.

The end result? I still live here, and I'm still driving my old car. That's the way it'll be, at least until next spring, when we might consider putting this house on the market again...