Good Lifestyle

If you told me a decade ago a decade ago, I would live in a small town without traffic lights, I would probably have laughed. Gruelin a small town In the North Dakota, all I wanted to grow was to escapeA big city As soon as I could - a place where no one knew me, like New York, Amsterdam or even Tokyo. And while I traveled in many of these cities and even lived in a few, I'm back in a small town with my husband and five children, which was not part of my master plan.

Five years ago, I was asuccessful, single mother two living in a medium-sized city. As manymothers of workMy life was an endless cycle of abandonment of children,stuck in traffic, working, being stuck in the traffic and choose children. The dwellings of the city were expensive, we lived in a small town house without our garden, passing our evenings instead of the Park of the city, where I impatiate my children as a helicopter. It was neither the great life of the city that I had planned with myself, nor of idyllic childhood that I wanted for them.

Then I met someone through aOnline dating site. He lived in a small town only 700 people an hour from the city. The first time I led to meet him, everything felt so familiar. The great old houses, the small handful of companies and the many empty shops. I could not have imagined that less than a year later, we hadto marry And choose to elevate our large family mixed in one of these old houses, like those who surrounded me grow.

The life of a small town is a kind of surreal. On my morning, I can do it on one side of our small village to another in about 15 minutes. I say hello to an older woman who walks her dog and my neighbor sprinkling her roses. I spend 100-year-old farms, with paint peeling their brushed front porches. I'm jogging in the village park, rounded a large white belvedere where a group plays on theOn the four of July. I will bypass a muddy trench around a old round round metal, engraved by generations of small feet. It's like the wholeGilmore girlsOnly without dinner that serves a good coffee.

The main street crosses the center of the city - a two-lane country road with speed limiting panels of 35 km / h with passing cars slowing down. We have a church, a bank, a grain elevator, a used car dealer and a bar. Then there is the chiropractician clinic that took over the brick building where they used the weekly newspaper and a watch shop, which has somewhat managed to stay open at the age ofonline shopping.

A few blocks away, there is the fire station for the volunteer firefighters who hosts an annual pancake flow and the baseball field where the little league playsOn hot summer evenings. In the other direction, there is a beauty salon, a firearms shop, my children 'primary schoolAnd a former post office, which the post teacher tells me is planned to close his imminent retirement.

He feels so familiar and safe, and this sense of security has helped me become a different type of mom than in the city. I can send my four oldest children to the outside to play without worrying that they will be hurt - and knowing that if they do, someone will help them. We set borders and curfews to match their ages and capabilities, rather than watching all their movements. As a small town parent, I can breathe you relax, even.

As a woman, I also feel more safe. I ran hundreds of kilometers on gravel roads near our small town - so different from running in the city, where I constantly felt on a high alert. I traded in my pepper spray for cookies for curious farm dogs that I believe. I know that if I made myself hurt or taken from the rain, I could hit any door for help, as I would like to offer help to a stranger who struck on mine.

Since IWork at home, my favorite part is tranquility here. The roads on the road and the sirens of the city have been replaced by singing birds, crickets of crillaes and even Mooing cattle. I can see foxes and deer near the edge of the city, where paved streets are turning to gravel roads lined with corn fields, green pastures and blue sky from the horizon on the horizon. Yes, it's like you've heard about yourfavorite country song.

As you wait, the cost of living is much lower here. We can afford a huge housewith a big backyardAlso - for much less than my tiny city rental. But we pay considerably more for power and the internet, which both seem to go out almost every day. I do not see my friends or a cup of decent coffee as often as I would like. The nearest shopping center and hospital are about 30 minutes and we are a full hour of good Thai cuisine.

And then there are the non-monetary costs of the life of the beaten track. Sometimes I feel isolated, but it can also be a self-imposed isolation. It's hard to keep your children away from going somewhere, the period, but it's even more difficult when it comes to at least one 30-minute drive every way to take them anywhere other than School or the village park.

Our neighbors are, for the most part, friendly ... maybe too friendly sometimes. You can not ride the street without talking to someone, whether you want it or not. I miss the anonymity of the city's life. Here, if I have a conflict with a neighbor, everyone will know before the end of the day. The school of my children has a gossip mill similar to a smaller scale. When there are only 13 children in your class, a fall with a friend orEmbarrassing moment is "literally the worst", my children tell me.

Sometimes I worry about having exchanged the opportunity to elevate my children in a diverse and inclusive community for small small city freedoms. And frankly, there are times when I do not know if I made the right choice.

As my children get older and their needs change, we can go back to the city to expose them to a greater variety of opportunities and people. However, it seems that progress occurs here too. While new developments develop, replace farmland with rows of cookie-cutter houses for young families, our small city changes and becomes more diversified.

For now, I feel lucky to be able to send my children outside to play and enjoy the quiet loneliness of living here, just as my mother was doing when we were growing children in a small town. We have no fire, so we have the community, culture and serene solitude. And for more about the benefits of living outside the city, checkThe best things about life in the suburbs.