Small Town Life

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering how does a girl from Chicago adapt to being in a small town? Why would you want to live in a small town?

Well, I adapted pretty well. Some would say I was a country girl born in the city. I hated the traffic and commotion that a city provides. Don't get me wrong, I love to go back to visit, but I don't ever want to live there again.

I made this decision to move to Iowa because it would be quieter, it would mean better schools for my kids and it would be safer. It was not a decision that I made lightly at all. It meant giving up having family nearby. It meant starting over. When I first moved it meant being alone 75% or more of the time because my husband traveled for work. When we had our first, it meant me being a single parent while he traveled with no real help until he was home. I made these sacrifices for the good of my family.

When we first moved to our small town 3 years ago, I was a stay at home mom with a 2 year old and pregnant.  We didn't really have many neighbors at the time either because our part of the development was new. I hardly knew anyone. It felt like I didn't belong, but that this was home.  Then last October (2014), I got a job and put my girls into daycare. I started meeting people from our town. Yet I still felt like there was this password to get accepted into mom groups or to become friends with the people of this small town. Truth is, its more about the kids and us parents making more of an effort to be a part of this community. Through my work, I was able to make these connections because my coworkers are at the high school games being athletic trainers or are doing rehab for someone who knows someone else and I'm the "gatekeeper" to them. Which is fine. I've made friends with many of these people. Some of the high school kids are working in the daycare that my kids go to. This town is finally feeling like home. It's nice.

We go to our town's yearly celebration in the third weekend in July. Last year, we knew our few neighbors. This year I got stopped to chat by the teenagers I see in my work and at the daycare, by our daycare teachers, by my daughter's tee-ball coach, by the parents of some of these teenagers, parents of my children's friends and yes even the newer neighbors in our development. I swear I couldn't walk more than a few feet without a "hi, how you doing?" It was great! This feeling of being part of something bigger and of having a "village" to help raise my kids, that's why I moved to this small town. It took a while, but it's home now. It will always be home.

I just wish I could move other towns (like the one my parents are in & the one my best friend of 25 + years is in) to be right next to mine because I miss them too much.