Settling Down?

     Had a lovely day out in the English countryside yesterday. (Everything's lovely now, folks, even if it isn't). And then a scary revelation.

     My husband had a day off so we drove out of London to meet an old friend of his and his wife for lunch at a country pub in the South Downs, a majestic, rolling, green (the English do green like nobody else), impossibly quaint area near the south coast of England.

      Lovely lunch in one of the oldest pubs in Surrey. Food not that great, but we don't talk about that (probably shouldn't have picked fish -- especially so soon after my Italian calamari).       Setting gorgeous. Biggest, most perfectly trimmed hedges I've ever seen. Cutest little winding wooded country lanes. 

      Coming back into London, my husband decided to do a little detour along memory lane, and show me all the different houses and flats he lived in when growing up. Poor little guy moved around a lot. 

      Nothing had changed in the area so he easily knew the way to his old school, the pool he used to hang out in, the park where he met his friends, the pub where his father drank too much and the back lane short-cuts to and from his old hang-outs.  

      I could just see him in my mind's eye, riding his bike here and there, laughing, his little school cap sliding off his young head.

      I looked over at him driving. Since I had been in Italy, he had gotten completely used to driving on the left again, much more confident with it than when I left a month ago. He said London had all come back to him now too, and he could find pretty much find anything again, just like a quarter-century ago. 

      This just after I tried to get into the wrong side of the car -- again. (and no, I didn't drink anything at lunch).      

      And then it hit me: This guy is settling down. He's comfortable here. And getting more and more comfortable as time goes on. Completely the opposite of me.

      AND he's not crazy. 

      What the hell am I going to do?