Growing up used to city life, I found the charm of walking downtown often exhilarating. I loved going into those little bead stores when I was young, and making a necklace all on my own and feeling like I artistically created something. I enjoyed all of the local shops and dining. I loved having a school that could provide for a creative student, and when I moved to a small town, I originally thought that no person had any reason for living there, and small town citizens actually were mostly hermits. No person could enjoy being three hours and an entire mountain pass away from the nearest mall. No single human being could bare a life without a Starbucks every few miles as they drove. But what I quickly learned after my family’s big move to a small town is that small town life can actually be absurdly charming.

The funny thing is, while living in a big city, I did not often find people that would stop on the city streets because they wanted to talk to me, and if I ran into a friend in public, it was often a huge coincidence, instead of an everyday occurrence. In a small town however, I quickly learned that I would be recognized wherever I went, and often by several different people, and that in general, people wanted to talk to others and meet on the streets. Parents would talk for several minutes in the grocery store and “accidentally” meet each other there every day. Kids could safely meet in the toy aisle as their mommies gossiped happily away.

The majority of the inhabitants are anything but recluses, though they enjoy their privacy when at home. It was common to find find elderly ladies spreading gossip just as fast as at the barbershop and hair salons in Mayberry. I even found out I was pregnant through the small town rumor mill, though I was actually not, before I had ever had a chance to have a real boyfriend. People talk and laugh and share, and there were so many extroverts that my introverted nature was often an oddity.

I found that in my special very small town new school that if you do not belong to a cowboy family, and do not own at least two pairs of boots, you will be the school weirdo. I noticed that Future Farmers of America succeeded, while the theater group struggled to survive. We even had to cancel our first play. You were not considered a worthwhile student in this school if you did not choose to participate in many sports. And it was also an integral part of your normal class schedule to skip math or history for a year in order to take agriculture classes or farm mechanics. I was quickly an outcast in a school that treasured the farming and athletic life.

After two years of hanging out with the school outcasts, my family moved to a medium sized school, still situated in a nearby small town, but that just seemed to make more sense to me. There was actually drug dealing happening again like I had experienced in the big city, and everybody knew which kids were the buyers, but there was also a thriving theater group and arts classes taught by actual artists. There were no cousins going to the prom together and boys did not dislike a girl if her boots were not muddy enough. There were weirdos who loved and thrived in forensics class and art competitions held at the actual school! I began to feel much more at home when I began to realize how many familiar things I had missed in an unfamiliar small town school. And though my new school was not quite big enough for my taste, I found a new home in the “big” school centered in my new small town home.