Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The trials of living in a small town...

Due to economics and happenstance I live in the middle of freakin' nowhere. Ok, I live on a (beautiful) lake and can enjoy that whenever I please, but there are some negatives to living here.

*Nothing to do in the winter. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Water and cold weather don't mix. Add in a rapidly receding waterline and you have a not-so-fun combo.

*Everyone wants to know your damn business. I'm a very private person and don't care too much for the neighbors discussing my life story and thus making judgments. It's not like I'm trying to be a snob, but when it's obvious you're prying for information and I know you're going to turn around and extrapolate some idiotic story (and by extension judgment) because you have nothing better to talk about, I'm going to be hesitant to give you information. To be fair, I'm pretty reserved about certain parts of my life with even my closest friends. It's not like I'm trying to hide anything, though, haha.

*So-slow-I-feel-like-I'm-backing-up drivers. Most of that is just a conflict of ideals. The speed limit to me is more often than not just a mere suggestion :P I tend to drive 55-65mph on straight roads and 70-80 on interstates. I'm not lying. Tonight I was on my way into town and got behind a Hart Co. Sheriff and I swear his top speed was no more than 28mph in a 55. It seems he was looking for a specific street, which incidentally gives me such confidence in the Hart County Sheriff's Department to come to my or my family's help in a timely manner should we need it. NOT!

#*#*# Side note, I'm watching 18 Kids and Counting as I'm writing this. The oldest of the 18 is 20 (TWENTY!?!?!) and is just announcing that after 4 (FOUR?!?!?!?!) months of marriage he and his wife are pregnant. GOOD LORD!!!!!!!! I'm 23 and I can't even imagine having a kid right now, much less three years ago. I'm thinking of all the things I've learned and probably still have yet to learn. Sheisse!.

*Lack of restaurants. I'm pretty eclectic in my food tastes, but I like a lot of Asian cuisine, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Indian, etc. I hate fast food and Subway gets old. So I live in the wrong town, haha. All my favorites are at least an hour away. Major bummer. Thankfully I have some good friends in said hour-away-town that make it easy to enjoy better food when visiting said friends.

* Critters in the house and never-ending freakin yardwork. Maybe that makes me lazy but the last thing I want to do after a long day is spend seemingly inordinate amounts of time doing menial tasks in the yard. Yes, I know it just has to be done sometimes, but my Dad ENJOYS that crap, and as such goes and goes and finds things to do for other people. Fine for him, but he gets mad when we don't want to do it, yet he can't seem to understand why we don't want to do it. Maybe that makes me lazy, I don't know. Maybe some part of me will just always remember my dad not always being the best communicator (but he's very smart) and getting easily frustrated. I can vividly remember several times when I was younger (this isn't supposed to be a rag on what a terrible person my dad is, because he's not) my dad getting so frustrated to the point where he couldn't even think straight simply because I couldn't (or wouldn't, that was fifteen years ago, so who knows) throw a ball or cut the grass just right (yes it's back to that). I'm not a big believer in psychology/childhood trauma (not that that was traumatic persay, but maybe there is something to not always being able to let go of bad memories that happened. I must be willing to admit that I have a long memory of both good and bad events and I don't easily forget somebody who's done me wrong or made me very angry (though that's not easy to do) just easily as I don't forget a kindness. It's all about give and take. So having said all that my next domicile will more than likely be an apartment or townhouse where there isn't a yard until I warm to the idea of never-ending yardwork!

In hindsight if I had to do it over again I more than likely wouuld not choose to live here again. I did it to save money, but it cost me a lot of aggrivation and stress. Yes, some of it I put upon myself because I didn't want to do what I had agreed to (though I didn't really realize what all that entailed, now I do), but ultimately I probably should have known better.

*I'm so far away from everybody and everything. Simple things like going to the grocery store require at least an hour. If I need clothes, well, forget it, that's at least two to three hours because there's only one store in town and it doesn't have much of anything I need.

So enough with the negatives. How about a few positives.

* It's deathly quiet when I need peace and quiet, I've certainly got it.

* The people, though nosy, are friendly.

* When every farmer in the county isn't shovelling chicken crap by the ton everywhere it's a gorgeous landscape.

* The drivers aren't nearly as bad as Baldwin/Putnam counties'!

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