The Laura Debates

After The Boy and The Girl were both born and I returned to work, we bought the house we were living in, in our old home-town.
I guess that's when The Man and I - for the first time at the same time - started seriously talking about our future.
It was a big shock to learn just how different our plans were.
I was still talking about volunteering in Asia or Africa.
But while I was picturing Rwanda or Cambodia, The Man was thinking of a little B&B in Laura.
I'd talk about the islands, or even NSW - and he'd mention Laura.
I'd talk about trees - he'd assure me there were trees in Laura, in fact it's just half an hour from a state forest.
I'd talk about beaches - he'd tell me how Laura was just half an hour from Port Broughton, which has a beach.
Laura, Laura, blah, blah, blah.
I found myself bawling on the back steps one day, screaming at him that he was never to mention Laura again.
I wouldn't move to Laura if my life depended on it. And possibly, his did.
If he even drove past a turn-off sign to Laura on the way to somewhere else I'd pull it out of the ground and wrap it around his throat.
So, without ever going to or seeing Laura it had become the epitome of stagnant parochialism for me.

I'd like to apologise to Laura, and its inhabitants - especially now that I'll be living just half an hour up the road from the gorgeous, green little Flinders Ranges town.
I love the place. I do.
And if you see me twitch when someone mentions it in the street that's just an old habit.
I'm hoping it will go away eventually.

I hate him when he's right.