As I waited for my coffee and bagel at the corner deli on Friday, I got to check out some headlines. The NY Post read “Groom and Doom in Dream Home”. Ah, house related….I was intrigued.

Newlyweds Kelly and Michael Forbes moved to South Merrick, Long Island in September. It took Kelly all of 2 months to go crazy in the suburbs and murder her husband. Not that I’m trying to make light of it. It’s a tragic situation, especially since Kelly has a 7 year old daughter. But there’s just a little part of me that understands what Kelly was going through.

I don’t speak for every New Yorker, but many of us who grew up here have a love/hate relationship with the city. I tried to move away from NYC at least 5 times in my 42 years, but I always come back. The city is stressful, dirty, crowded, people are rude, it’s loud…I can go on.

But here’s the thing… When I leave, I take all that stuff with me. Hello, my name is Phyllis and I am a neurotic New Yorker. I was stressed out living in smaller cities because people were too polite. I hated living in the country because life was too slow. I didn’t want to murder my husband, but had I stayed, I might have started plotting to kill my nosy neighbors. When I’m out of NYC, my environment slows down, but I don’t. Do you know what that’s like to have all of this nervous energy that you don’t know what to do with? It can drive you mad!

I do love living in Beacon. I can get good food (actually, the restaurants suck, but I can get good take out). I have access to art and antiques and the great outdoors. Half the population is really cool. But still…I couldn’t hack it. I felt displaced and disconnected.

So, I came back home. Part time. The city still pisses me off if I spend too much time here. But I have the best of both worlds. I know I can leave. And I can leave Beacon when I start getting the itch. I know a few people who left the city only to return. They bought into the idea of a big house and good schools in the suburbs. They lost money on those homes when they couldn’t last longer than a year.

Here’s a tip: Don’t pick up and leave your home without leaving a door open behind you. You do that, you just might kill your husband one day.