Well, lets start from the beginning:
- When living in a small, tight-knit community, and you find yourself suddenly related (through marriage) to half of the town, it begins to feel a little claustrophobic. Everywhere I go, I have someone reporting to someone else. It is really getting old. I can't go to the pub after work, have an ale and walk home without hearing about it from my husband before I even get home. I also hate the loss of anonymity. I used to live in a city where I knew a handful of people and that was it. I could make a fool of myself at a bar across town, drive home and no one would know. Not that I want to be able to act foolish for a bunch of strangers, but being able to carry on my life without someone misinterpreting me or even outright lying about what I am up to.
- Too much family for such a small area.
- Meth. Meth. Damn meth is in our town and I am sick to death of seeing people dealing in the playground or highschool parking lot. Seeing the skeletal forms of what used to be a mother or father, now too self absorbed and tweaked out to care for their children.
- Family, leering over my shoulder, waiting for me to stumble so they can revel in my misfortune.
- The medical facility is sub-par and if you ever need immediate care, you better hope a medivac can make it in time. Women have died from breast cancer being overlooked or letters urging more testing be done, never sent.
- Crappy customer service almost everywhere you go. The mail delivery guy sits on packages over the weekend, even if it is medicine and is labeled that it should be refrigerated or delivered in a timely manner. If you tick him off by calling attention to his terrible work ethic, be prepared to either never receive items, receive them rifled through or broken. Mail from the post office takes weeks to send a letter, in town. Basically, it takes someone WEEKS to pick up the mail out of the "in" bag, turn around, find the appropriate box, and stick it in. Send your car to the shop to be fixed. They hold it for a few days, tell you its fixed, pay an exorbiant fee and then a few days later you find out, it wasn't really fixed... ARRRrg!
- Pedophiles seem to be welcomed here. Victims are painted as liers and slandered. Nevermind that they are young (10 years old most recently) and can provide detailed, horrific accounts that no child could ever fabricate. We have a pedophile working at the grocery store right now. He isn't suppose to be around young girls, but there are young girls working at the store and come in as customers. If I were the owner of the store he would never have gotten a job.
- conniving, backstabbing, gossipy, lying, jealous, and meddling family.
- Forget getting any kind of quality foods, and if the store does, don't expect them to be able to continue getting it. As soon as a product becomes popular, they no longer carry it. Rotten veggies abound!
- No nightlife, unless you are satisfied with just sitting in any one of the 4-5 bars, all of which are basically the same except that 2 are by membership only.
- It is a spiritual dead zone here. There are, I think 8 churches here. For such a small community, you would think it is either incredibly diverse and open minded, or confused. Actually, they all (okay, the Salvation Army is exempt here) are extremely judgmental of you as soon as you walk in the door. I can't tell you how many self righteous individuals, mince around acting like God's chosen and then you see them at the bar making out with someone other than their spouse. Infidelity, rampant adultery and illegitimate children are a plague here!
Okay, I am being totally negative, I know. I don't want much, just better quality of service. At the very least, a medical facility that I can feel confident will care for me or my children as if we were family. I want to be able to go to a grocery store and find everything on my list and in good condition (I am sick of slicing into an onion, only to find it is rotten in the middle!). I would like to find a church that I could feel welcome in and at peace. I know any where I go, there will be problems, but I want more offered to counterbalance the negatives. Small town, with big city problems and none of the benefits of a big town. It really sucks. Course, next week, the moon will be in a different position, my cycle will start over and all will be rosy right? I sure hope so.
Yep, they are my life. I love them soooooo much. I had no idea how fun, terrifying, wonderful, agonizing, and heartbreaking it would be to be a mommy. If you aren't one yet (due either to age or stage of life) but hope to be a parent someday, I wish you the best of luck and hope you find out how amazing and neat it is. Also, that you are never cursed with hateful in-laws!
