HOUSE LUST

I can"t imagine living anywhere other than Manhattan. After my husband, Phil, and I became parents, we never considered moving to the suburbs. When I visit friends there, no matter how lovely the town, it doesn"t feel like home. Even the most spacious house hasn"t tempted me to leave our two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. I felt this way until recently. A couple of weeks ago, Phil, our daughter Coco and I visited our best friends, Jeff and Jane, who had just moved to New Jersey. For the first time, I fell in love with a house. I wanted their house. I wanted to decorate it. I wanted to get old in it. When I walked into the pantry in search of a box of rice that Jane asked me to retrieve, I was stunned. I stood in the middle of a pantry the size of our bedroom and slowly spun my head. Surrounded by shelves and bins of products, I felt my cheeks grow pink with jealousy. I lusted for Jane"s pantry. But I can"t move to the suburbs. For starters, my weight would balloon. I walk practically everywhere in Manhattan and would gain 10 pounds in a couple of weeks if I drove everywhere. Secondly, Phil doesn"t know how to repair anything. The roof of our apartment would cave in if we couldn"t buzz down to the super to get things fixed. Besides, I grew up reading The New Yorker and still believe that the smartest, funniest people live in Manhattan. And I"m old. Some of my college friends" kids are in college. But Manhattan is filled with moms older than I am. As long as I remain here, I can convince myself that I"m not too old to be a mother of an 8-year-old. If I were to leave, I would have to face the fact that in some places I would be considered old enough to be Coco"s grandmother. Not to mention that I"m stunningly well adjusted's but only by Manhattan"s standards. If I interacted regularly with non-neurotic, non-New Yorkers, my well-adjusted persona would develop a few cracks. I would also lose my unique identity as someone without a shrink. So, clearly, I need to stay put. I guess I won"t be trading our bedroom for a pantry its same size in the burbs. My new mantra is going to be â??space is overrated. Repeat after me: â??Space is overrated. Sally Marshall, a freelance writer living in Manhattan, is writing a book entitled You"ve Got a Family, Now Get a Life.