Updating Emmy: 2005-11-09
Dear [Emmy],
Did you mean “Young and the Restless?” 
No w in Restless.
Do you think I  should  be saying more when you’re in distress? I’ve found that in these situations, that it’s best just to listen.
I too am excited about the retreat. Yippie!
The speech [writing] is going well.
Wow, that means a lot that I mean so much to you. I hope that one day, I can feel as excited about you as you seem to be about me. You mean a lot to me. I just wish I could fall in love.
On figuring out where I wanted to settle down: Well, I don’t think I’ve ever really figured that out. I’m still not convinced that I want to spend the rest of my life here in Altoona, although I won’t be too sad if it turns out that this is my last place to live. I don’t know. I suppose if I fell in love, that I’d want more to settle down. But so far, all the places I’ve lived have felt like temporary stopovers, sojourns, and just mere visits.
Sometimes, people aren’t the rooting kind, and don’t consider any place except where they grew up home. I fear that I’m that way. Pittsburgh was never really home, even though I lived there for over fifteen years. I liked it, and have many nice memories from there. But no, I couldn’t truthfuilly call it  home.  Same with Ohio, though I lived there for nine years. I liked Philly the best because it felt the most like a happy and homey place, although as we’ve discussed, it had its problems too.
In this day and age, with people traveling and moving around so much, the days of picking a single place to live one’s entire adult life are probably past. So you may chase home all your life and still not find it. Just don’t get too anxious about the decision.
There’s no reason you can’t stay where you are until you have a better sense of where you want to live.Â
Also, when you’re picking a place, I’d advise you not to think of it as a rest-of-your-life commitment. That only makes choosing more difficult. Perhaps it would be better to consider just the next two to four years. If it will work for that long, then go with it. You can see I trust, that worrying about the next twenty or thirty years very much complicates the process of choosing, because the further out into the future you consider, the less accurately can you predict and plan for things that happen then. In short, don’t plan too far ahead. The best laid plans are the most apt to go asunder.
Sorry about the CAPs. My keyboard got stuck in CAPS LOCK mode somehow and I’m probably going to have to reboot the computer to clear it.
Later,
Tom