Ten years ago last month, we picked up our happy little family of four and moved from the community both husband and I grew up in. We thought we were doing the right thing. It felt like the timing was right. All our loose ends were tied. The home we’d found one county south was exactly what we’d been looking for. Clean, clean, clean. Sell, sell, sell. Shop, shop, shop. Buy, buy, buy. Pack, pack, pack. Move, move, move.
And then, 3 months later, everything blew up in our faces. Oh, the house was still exactly what we’d been looking for, it was just suddenly in the wrong place. The wrong town. The wrong community. The wrong EVERYthing.
For 10 years, I’ve been living with that mentality. “Love my home, hate my community.” I volunteered now and then for my kids, but never threw myself into anything community related – on purpose. This was not my home. It never would be. The words of a particularly gossip-y lady at our then-church rang loudly in my ears everyday.
“Just, remember, you’ll always be an MI to us.”
What’s an MI? A move-in. You see, this is a small little town with severe growing pains. The “natives” aren’t too happy that them city folk keep moving down here to their little town in the sticks. Houses keep popping up in what used to be farmland. In fact, ours is what many natives always believed was a floodplain. Even our realtor (yes, a native) tried to talk us out of this brand new spec home because “that whole neighborhood is built on a floodplain. You’ll have flooding like crazy.” I asked around. No one ever had flooding. We risked it.
10 years later, our basement has never seen a drop of water. None of our neighbor’s basements have seen a drop of water. And boy, these Ohio springs have given them plenty of opportunities to flood, flood, flood. But, no. Not a floodplain. It’s not even by a stream or river. They just didn’t want any of us here.
Welcoming, no?
No. I struggle with the small town mentality down here. I struggle with the, “We’ve ALWAYS done it that way,” method of living life. I struggle with the fact that it takes me 20-25 minutes to find a grocery store that doesn’t charge me over $4 for a gallon of milk. Or, that actually carries, oh, I don’t know, REAL Parmesan cheese and not only that dust in a green can. I struggle with the fact that the educational and job opportunities are far fewer than they had been at my previous home. I struggled greatly with the fact that every time I went to the post office, I saw someone I knew, someone who either thought they knew all the answers about my changed life, or who wanted to know them.
Some of those struggles have lessened. No one cares about my changed life anymore and the natives are so far out-numbered that they just sound like cackling old hens when they start spouting about how we’ve ALWAYS done things. We MI’s respect the traditions in this community, but this is our community, too. Change happens. I still can’t buy real Parmesan without going to a completely different city, if not frequently, different county. The educational and job opportunities still aren’t all that stellar.
But, you know what? We do have a school system that passes levies and gratefully accepts school grant money to help us meet some goals. Yeah, they’re space goals right now, but one day? For the newer kids moving in? They’ll be educational goals. We do have a post office and an apothecary that you can walk to and those working there know your name, your address and might even remember where you went on vacation. And while it takes me 20-25 minutes to get to a decent grocery store, I also have 2 farmers markets within throwing distance of my home where I can get the freshest of fresh corn, apples, squash, green beans, peppers, onions, potatoes, homemade cheeses and baked goods.
And while some times I feel like I live in the middle of flipping nowhere, nothing beats sitting at my kitchen table with the windows open, a soft breeze blowing in and watching a train go by on the tracks just yards away from our backyard. The whistle blows, the beautiful engines break through the trees and the roaring power lifts me off of my seat.
Or, we have nights like this:
Taken the evening of November 5, 2009
And purple blends into orange and this little country house in the middle of a suburban neighborhood becomes home all over again.
Really though? Can’t someone build a freaking GROCERY store around here? I need my Parm, people. A girl needs her Parm!
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