Many people have asked me, in the last 4 years, why a small town? Whether it be locals, or friends and family back home, the question comes up a lot. While it’s easy to give the generic “city life just wasn’t for me” or “I just happened to meet Officer K and I was sold”, the answer is far more complex than that.
After spending much of my adolescent years shuffled from one parent, and grandparent to the other, and never truly feeling stable anywhere, I wanted some place that I could call home. That felt like home. That had deep roots, a support system, and a rich history. That’s what I got here. I got so much more than that, though.
I think people who have never lived in a small town or community just don’t understand the significance. There’s something so special about the business and people in a small town. It’s the little things, really, that make the biggest difference. Like the way Miss Cassandra always double bags my groceries because she knows I walk, and how the woman and the Chinese place always throws a few extra fortune cookies in because she knows our dogs like to eat them for treats. It’s the way the woman at the gas station calls us her “favorite couple” in town, and how the woman at the burger place knows our order by heart, and how the Miss Angela at the Dollar Store always asks about my “crazy mother-in-law”. It’s little, seemingly meaningless things, that make the difference.
Sure, there are some cons to small town life. Like the town gossip who seems to know your business before you do, the city management that is shadier than an alley at midnight, and how it can be hard to avoid people that you have had falling outs with, or simply just don’t care to waste 15 minutes answering prying questions like “how’s Officer K doing? How are your in-laws? Have you found a new job yet?”
But honestly, I will take those cons any day, because compared to living in the city where everyone is in a rush to nowhere, and I’m just anther face in a sea of people who don’t care, it’s nice to be someone and to know others. To be somewhere that has a long history of supporting each other and making it through. I’m proud to live where I live, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Seizing the Day 