Day 86: Go to the wrong side of the tracks

I have not abandoned This Book Will Change Your Life contrary to the way it might appear.  But I have had my heart set on Day 85 playing out in a certain way.  Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to properly execute Day 85’s challenge… so I have made a heretofore unprecedented choice.  I am gonna skip it and come back to it.  A wild life, I lead, I tell you.

Day 86 is a simple challenge.  Simple by design and in execution.  “Go to the wrong side of the tracks.”

I quite literally cross a set of train tracks almost daily on my ride to work if I go through Carrboro.  And lately I have been driving through town whenever I have the chance. But I don’t know that there is a “wrong side” of the tracks in Carrboro.

The wrong side of the tracks…. One could say when I moved to Chapel Hill and in to the apartment with Em we lived on the wrong side of the tracks.  I tried to tell myself that I should feel safer because the cops drove by all the time, right?  This plan didn’t always work.  And after our place was broken in to one terrible afternoon I never really felt safe there, again.

It was home.  Em slept with me more often than not, because that was how I preferred it.  And I kicked a charlie bar under my front door handle and made do.

So, in the spirit of this challenge I drove by our old place today.  And while there were still quite a few ne’er-do-wells hanging around… it didn’t look so bad to me.  My life started anew right there.

But even there wasn’t really the wrong side of the tracks.  It was just a neighborhood full of hard working people.  Some of whom happened to be hard at work within… alternative  industries.

My favorite “side of the tracks” in Chapel Hill… the side of the tracks that was so wrong so many nights but always felt so right?       The Station, of course.  As a single mother I didn’t get out too awful much.  And then MQD and I started dating hot and heavy so going out seemed superfluous.   But when we went “out” there was only place we were headed.  Across the train tracks and to The Station.  Where you can laugh at the hipster kids and dance and drink PBR and shots of jaeger and bum a smoke on the deck until you are blue in the face and no one will mind.  MQD and I had plenty of sloppy nights at The Station.  And a few afternoons. My day drinkathon bachelorette party stopped at The Station.  MQD and I spent New Year’s there one year. We had our rehearsal dinner next door at The Southern Rail.

So, I think I have spent plenty of time on both “sides of the tracks” while here in Chapel Hill.   And in a few short weeks we’ll go clear across town to a new place.  Here’s hoping we end up on the right side over there in Hillsborough.  Because right or wrong, I am ready to stay put for a good long while.