Living in a Small Town

And every road here looks the same

This ol' town won't ever change

And that's what I love the most

And it's the reason I must go

--Sugarland, Small Town Jericho

I've mentioned before I grew up in a small town in Western PA. Everyone knew everyone else, and if you weren't related to almost everyone, you were either married to someone who was, or best friends with someone who was. My mother has two best friends--one is my best friend's mother, the other is another close friend's mother. And my brother's best friend is my best friend's brother. My graduating class had maybe 110 people in it--and it was large. Our little town had one light, and to get to another town you drove through 5-10 miles of highway and trees. And the enrollment number at Temple University was more than in my entire county. It's the kind of town you love to hate while growing up, count the hours until you can leave, then once you leave, you realize just what you had and how lucky you were to grow up in such a town.

My cousin Kristin got married Saturday--to the boy who sat beside me in pretty much every class throughout high school. It's the boy whose cousin married my best friend, and in the wedding, my math teacher was an usher. Another friend (who was another cousin of the groom) was present, as well as friends and parents of friends and on and on.

Where we live now outside Philadelphia, Ted likes to comment about how all the picnics and parties have "worlds colliding". Meaning that parties and picnics we attend are held for the hosts' friends and family, regardless of if friends and family have ever met. Often times we are the only ones there we know, and spend most of the time talking to each other, or at least a little mingling, but nothing quite like was is expected. It wasn't until I moved here where "worlds colliding" even met anything. Where I grew up, worlds didn't collide...it was just one big world where everyone knew everyone.

However, going back "home" today is bittersweet. So many aspects about that little town are still the exact same as I remember them. The roads have not changed. The car wash is still the hang-out, and I still see the same people from high school hanging out there. Sheetz is still the place to go for sandwiches, and the wagon-wheel-shaped town center where the Doughboy statue stands still has to be the most dangerous intersection within 10 miles. But at the same time, so much is different. People I used to know I don't recognize. When I tell them I live near Philadelphia, they look at me like I told them I now live in China. My grandparents house still looks like it did, but they don't live there. The house I grew up in still looks so much the same, but so different. Part of me wants to run away, screaming. The other half never wants to leave again.

It's sad when small towns have no where to go. For that reason alone, I was thrilled when Ted and I bought our first house and moved out of the confines of Ben Franklin Parkway to a small town in Montgomery County. The town has one red light. It's not unusual to go to the supermarket and run into someone you know. We have, on occasion, left the back door open for Curly to look out the screen door all night. On some summer nights, cow pasture fertilizer fills the air. I'm not afraid to raise my children here. But while it has the charm of the town I grew up in, it has the growth of every other town in the Philadelphia region and Lehigh Valley. The city is a 45-minute train ride. And I love it so much, I try to talk all my family and friends into moving here, I just know they'd love it, too.

So while half of me loves where I live, the other half will always be in the town I grew up in. And while it hurts me to go back, the memories I carry of living there and growing up there are alive and well and fondly held, so much that part of me still dreams of living in my grandparents' farmhouse and raising kids on the farm. However, as alive as those dreams are, so is the realiziation that it just wouldn't be me to stay there.