The "Great" Small Town Life

Small towns are the Nirvana of the masses. Everywhere you turn, some career expert or financial planner suggests a mass exodus from major cities like Atlanta or NYC to small town life. Jobs are supposedly abundant, the air is cleaner, homes are cheaper, schools are spectacular & the local color is "to die for."

So I found it interesting to read this story a few days ago.

For once, some honesty about differences b/t the big city & small town life. There are bigots. There is nothing to do in some places but become a meth addict. In fact, studies have shown that more teens in areas with nothing for them to do turn to drugs to ease their boredom. I can't even go to my hometown for longer than 2 weeks before wanting to return to the hustle, bustle and craziness of NYC and the bluntness of Northerners. It's not even technically a small town; it's a small city.

What this article describes are the exact reasons I HATE small towns with a passion. I don't care to have the entire world know my business & hate having to worry that my friends will tell my enemies things that I've told them in confidence. I don't even like sharing my friends w/my enemies since everyone except me is friends w/everybody else. Arrgh!

I hated that in 7th grade. The worst, though is people pretending to like you but cutting you down behind your back. That's practically a Southern tradition.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as hospitality. It's Southern hypocrisy.

Yeah, it happens other places but I've had far more hospitality in the "mean old" Northeast than I ever had in Atlanta or in the South (if you call NC the South). Hypocrisy is one of my biggest pet peeves.

My mother even claims people from here are rude while their manner is so much better for me than that of the South, where everyone takes their sweet ass time to do EVERYTHING. If you're checking out groceries or doing anything, you'll hear everyone's life story & it takes twice as long as it does in the Northeast. Especially in NYC.

I feel I was destined to live in the Northeast considering my mom once said she could see me living in New England, I don't have a Southern accent & I have a peace living here that I never felt when I lived in my hometown. I felt some of it in Atlanta but in NYC, I'm at my happiest. I could even live in parts of CT or have a vacation home there if I wanted some quiet time.

So guess what? Not ALL of us belong in small towns. If you'd chew your own arm off or go on a killing spree, maybe you need to stay in the city regardless of the hardships. I think life's far too short to let things like jobs or money stop you from living somewhere that makes you feel at peace. I vowed that I'd rather be a bag lady in NYC & live a short life than live in luxury in an area I hated for 90 years. I still feel that way.

The people making those remarks or who think that way haven't lived someplace that made them feel like a piece of them was dying day after day. They haven't watched someone else get more and more depressed b/c of a simple hatred for living someplace. Cliquishness in a small town IS a problem; it's prejudicial and would piss me off.

If you want to make a small town appealing, how about encouraging residents to not create enemies? Maybe they should be paying for the loss of movement so towns don't have to pay outsiders to move in. Only if they did that would these jerks get any of my sympathy. I have a general dislike for cliques and discrimination as it is.