I always tell everyone who asks that I grew up in a cornfield, which isn’t really that far off from the truth. I mean, most people don’t even know that the county I grew up in exists — let alone where to find the tiny town that I’ve lived in my whole life. Also, there is literally a cornfield right across the street from my house and the school building I graduated from was built on part of the FFA’s test plot, so that statement’s not exactly that much of a stretch.
Small town life is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it first hand. Everyone knows everything about everyone, and more often than not, almost everyone’s related to each other somehow. Small town people tend not to like outsiders, as the guy who built my family’s house told my mom the day she moved in.
Also, there’s generally a feeling of safety. I mean, there are times that I’ve walked home after dark with just my sister after a football game and felt perfectly secure. You just don’t feel like there’s anything to worry about (but crime still does occur in rural areas).
Things are just... slow? I guess that’s the way to put it. I can’t find a better adjective off the top of my head to describe it. You sometimes just feel isolated from the world — at least that’s how I feel whenever I’m back home.
Small town life can be described like a fish bowl, a metaphor my government teacher often used in high school. There’s just something comforting about being in this tiny fish bowl of a town to most people. Many are born in it, they live in it, and they die in it. They never leave because its all they know and all they ever want to know.
To me, that kind of life feels suffocating. There’s so much more to the world out there, and it’s so easily accessible to us in this day and age. I’m not saying everybody in small towns should just burn bridges and ditch their hometowns for the city or some foreign land because that kind of life is not for everyone, but I think everyone should leave the so-called fish bowl at least once in their lifetime.
Stepping out of your comfort zone to experience something you’re not used to is a good thing! You learn so, so very much by doing that and it can change you for the better. And it gives you something that you’ll remember for the rest of your life — something you can look back on and tell your grandchildren about.
I love being in the country. I love agriculture and grew up raising goats and dairy feeders for the county fair. Farming is my heritage on both sides of my family. There’s nothing like being able to go outside in the summer and just sit on the back porch grilling or planting flowers in the spring. I miss spending my summers raising animals and running around for 4-H and FFA.
Those are all experiences that I got while growing up in that little cornfield in Northwest Ohio. But, I also love the city. This past year in Cleveland has been so eye opening. And I’m glad that I ended up going to Cleveland State, even if it wasn’t my first choice (Penn State was and still is my dream school).
There’s just something about the city that completes me. Living there has taught me valuable life skills, like how to take care of myself, how to use public transportation, how to use money wisely (stuff in Cleveland is super expensive and Cuyahoga County has 8% sales tax, the highest in the State of Ohio), and how to navigate an interstate, even though I don’t drive.
It’s an adventure for a small town girl like me, and I want more. I’m studying to become a nurse with the intention of becoming a nurse practitioner and maybe even earn my doctorate in nursing science. My ultimate goal is to work and live abroad in Europe, and that will never happen if I stay put in the little fish bowl that is my hometown, afraid to swim with the bigger fish.
Everyone should have at least one adventure in their lives, especially those who are so accustomed to life in their hometown, both people from rural and urban areas alike. Even if it’s just a small taste of the larger world out there, everyone’s life would be so much better, so much more complete if they did that.
We’re living in a world where it’s never been easier to experience something new. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just take a trip to explore a new place within your state at the bare minimum. And our transportation is the most advanced that it has ever been. My great-grandparents on my dad’s side came from the old country on ships, journeys that were long and hard; now, if we want to cross the ocean, we just get on a plane and we’re there within a day.
There is literally no excuse to step out of the comfort zone of your hometown, even if it’s just for a little bit. Nobody is saying that you can’t go back if you find you don’t like it out there. But you may just be surprised at what you find.