Watching TV as a kid, I was envious of how it always seemed so easy for the characters to get where they were going. Everything was always magically within walking distance. Growing up in the suburbs on the West Coast, this was pretty far from my reality. I could walk to the houses of my friends in the neighborhood, but my friends from school lived too far away. We could ride our bikes to the pizza place or the little drugstore that sold candy, but they were far enough away that making the trek was an event and we didn’t do it often. Getting a little older didn’t make much of a difference, because, for the most part, West Coasters aren’t big on public transportation. Things are spread very far apart and there’s little chance of getting anywhere you need to be without a car.
This always felt very limiting to me as a kid–probably because my only job was to try to keep myself entertained. Man did that freedom taste sweet when I got my license at 16 and then a car at 17. I owned the town, except now I had to spend my time driving across it: to school, to work, and then back home. Take my senior year of college, for example. I lived on the west side of town, went to school on the south, had a job on the east, and then another job on the north. Every day I spent at least an hour driving and without ever leaving the city.
So it was weird for me to move down here to California where I am lucky enough to work and live and go to school all within the space of only a few blocks. By car, my longest commute is about 2 minutes (15 by foot). I appreciated it right from the beginning, but even now it’s kind of weird to me. It’s like I live in freaking Stars Hollow or something–just replace the quirky townsfolk with quirky academics.
But the strange thing about my life here in this little bubble is that while I used to have separate groups of friends and coworkers all unique to their locations and with nothing in common except for me, now everyone I know knows everyone else. New people I meet on campus recognize me from the library. I see my neighbors in class. My coworkers sometimes know my professors. I guess it’s limiting in another way, but for now, it’s just what I need.
This probably makes me sound crazy, but it’s weird to me to have so many people know who I am. Just that so many people know my name is weird, but that they also know where I work and what I study and how I spend my free time and where I live is very different for me. It’s not the semi-anonymous, ships-passing-in-the-night kind of life that it’s so easy to live these days. This non-anonymous life has brought a lot of really great things my way. It means that people can really get to know me. That I’ve been considered for amazing opportunities. And that I can get comfortable in a place.
Still, we all need a little escape, so I’ll keep this blog a secret until the day it eventually collides with my other–but no more real–life.
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I can relate to lot of that. My high school had a good reputation, so kids came from all over the area to study there, and I was one of the furthest away. The school and almost everyone I met there were two bus rides away; it could be hard work at times. And a lot of people I know don’t know each other. I don’t mind it most of the time, because it means I can do different things with different people, but it can be nice to have that really together group of friends, like I remember having in sixth form. I guess academic settings help foster that kind of situation. It sounds like you have a nice little social circle anyway.
Its weird when all your different “separate” lives start to collide. I guess I found that to a certain extent when one of my co-workers became a flatmate.
I think this is why I really enjoy small town life. I go to the store and almost always see someone I know. I’ve had the same neighbors for 20 years. There is a great comfort in having people know you. There is also a downside to it becuase, as in my case, they’ve known you so long they expect you to do or be certain things. But for now, I really enjoy it too.
I’ve been living in the sane New York City ‘suburb’ my whole life, and I can get anywhere in my borough with my eyes closed. But, since it is NYC, my neighbors are constantly changing. I’ve never had a friend from down the block, something I desperately wished for when I was a kid. Still, I wouldn’t trade my NYC experience for anything :)
My town is too large to walk anywhere, but growing up my best friend lived across the street. She still lives there, but I moved into my own apartment fifteen minutes away. I do miss living so close, but it felt too weird living in my parents’ house after graduating.
I miss my small town. I’m a city kid now, and don’t think I could live most of the year any other way, but the closeness of the small town was great. And, in an odd way, I really liked that in a small town you have to work extra hard to be “anonymous;” you have to find unique ways of being invisible when you want. It’s so easy in the city to just blend in.
I love my small town. I’m going to miss my small town when I move next year.
For me it happened the opposite way – I grew up in a small un-anonymous town and then moved to a larger city. I felt so lost and alone when I was first there, but now I find back home a bit confining.
I just want to say, I’m really envious. I do not live a life like this. Honestly, I don’t even know most of my neighbors names. And the one I do know is because his mother shouts his name all the time. (And he’s older than me.) It’s kind of sad. I wish I had the kind of existence where people KNEW me…even just for a passing wave on the street.
God, my post is depressing. Sorry about that. I’ll cheer it up with a smily emoticon.
:)
That sounds about like what it is to live in Jacksonville. This city is so spread out. It takes pretty much 15 minutes at the least to get anywhere. There’s different “sides” of town. I don’t mind it so much. I guess just because I’m used to it. But I’m also envious of the cities that allow for more foot traffic.