Small Town

Last Saturday, I ran into one of Dane's classmates and his sister and father in the grocery store.  I had never met the father, as I am the "pick up parent" at Dane's preschool and I always see the classmate's mother instead.  I immediately recognized the kid though and introduced myself to the dad.  Dane wasn't with me, but I told him whose mother I was and he remembered Jonathan's name right away.  (This is pretty impressive on its own, as once your child is in daycare, school, soccer, etc., you cease to have a name.  I'm forever and always "Dane's mom.")  We chatted for a few minutes and I told him I'd give his wife my cell number the next afternoon at school so we could get the kids together this summer.  It got me thinking about how I am always surprised at my life.  Always.  Even the little things.

I grew up in a metropolitan area, a county with well over half a million people in it the year I left.  I now live in a county with a population of less than 150,000.  If you had asked me growing up where I would want to make my home, it would have been at least very close to a big city.  That's what I knew.  I went to college not far from where I live now, and when Jonathan and I were making plans for our life together, we immediately started looking back to the area where we were both raised.  Although we never met until college, we grew up in the same county. Jonathan's dad jokes that he sent his kid to college 2 hours south just to meet a girl that lived 10 miles from him.  Anyway, the job offers just weren't there.  Well, they were there, but it was the same pay as he'd been offered to sign on full-time with the job he'd interned at during his final semester before graduation.  It didn't make sense to move back to our hometown for the same pay when the cost of living was so much cheaper where we were.  So we waited, and continued to look for job opportunities near our families, assuming that our residence was just temporary.

But something unexpected happened.  (Doesn't it always?)  We fell in love with our small town!  We loved not having to fight traffic, the friendliness of our new hometown, and it was just close enough to the coast that we could make a day trip of it if we wanted.  We weren't too far from our families either.  If we missed concerts, restaurants, shopping..... well, that was just a day trip away as well.

Don't get me wrong, we don't live in a farm town.  There's a Target and a Publix within a few miles -- otherwise I'd never survive! ;)  But to me, this is a small town.  When your pharmacist offers to bring your prescriptions to the T-ball game (his son just happens to be on the same team), and you can't go to the grocery store without running into your husbands co-workers, and every other Target run involves meeting another parent who just so happens to be shopping for the same three year-old's birthday party that you are..... to me, that's small town living.  And I'm perfectly pleased with it.

What's more small town than holding a baby chicken?