Small Town Illusions

How many times have I wanted to run away from whatever was troubling me in my life at the time? When peace hasn’t been found within, I somehow think it can be found in a place. Many people, I believe, search for peace, happiness, love, and contentment but we don’t know where to find it, so we often turn to external things to give us a sense of belonging, connection, freedom, ease, and many other feelings we may be yearning for.

Toward the end of my junior year of high school, I was feeling frustrated and in need of a change. I was looking for who knows what? I didn’t even know. I was just finishing a middle place in my life where life had felt boring and drab, and where I felt like no one knew I existed. I know there were good things about that year, but still I had come to a point of feeling unsettled. And then the opportunity came for me to go take care of my grandparents in a small town in Idaho. I think the idea of a small town appealed to me much like being invited to live in a fantasy might. I had read books and watched movies about the almost magical transforming power that exists in the small-town charm. And I wanted that.

I started daydreaming of fitting in, being loved and accepted by the whole town and the whole school to the point where I wouldn’t want to ever leave but to stay and graduate from the same high school my mom did instead of returning home in time to start my senior year. My hope was that I would find my purpose, my identity, and my belonging in this small town.

The city I grew up in wasn’t large like New York or Chicago—thank goodness- but with a student body of over 700 it wasn’t small either and it was easy to feel overlooked and ignored. I’m not really one who likes to be in the limelight or to be the center of attention, so it wasn’t that—there was just something missing, but I didn’t know what. So, I accepted the opportunity with hopeful anticipation.

What were the qualities that I believed existed in small towns that I was looking for? What was the appeal that seemed to be the focus of many Hallmark movies? What was I expecting? Maybe to find the man of my dreams, fall in love and live happily ever after?

I had visited my grandparents every year my whole life, (that seemed to fit in with the Hallmark story line), but all my cousins were there at the same time, so I knew that going alone was going to be different. I wanted to be able to connect well with and take exceptional care of my grandparents and was looking forward to forming a close bond with them with all the one-on-one time that was hard to have with all their other grandchildren around, but what did I know about caregiving? Nothing!

Once we arrived and after my mom drove away, leaving me behind for my first ever adventure away from home, I started feeling homesick and uncertain about my decision to have come. I had opportunities to attend the last day of school with some girls that my grandparents knew from town and to a few other things with them during my stay. But there was no tall, handsome potato farmer who instantly fell in love with the new, city girl in town, or me with him. As I matter of fact, I don’t think I even saw a tall handsome potato farmer the whole time I was there. To be fair, I wasn’t there for very long. I hardly gave the town a chance, and no one was begging me to stay, to wait it out and give it time. My focus was all wrong. And when I remembered what my focus was supposed to be—the purpose for my being there in the first place—I was scared.

I hadn’t been there long when my grandpa showed me a doorbell he had installed in the upstairs hallway by the bathroom door. He had installed it for the purpose of calling to me if he or my grandma needed me during the night. I had been expecting to just be an extra pair of hands, someone to run errands and do the shopping, to mow the lawn, clean, do the dishes and the laundry and be a companion to my grandparents. Those were things I felt I could do, and did, but to be a caregiver, that was pretty overwhelming to me, frightening, and I didn’t think I could do that. So even though it was quiet there—maybe quieter than I was comfortable with, and life moved at a slower pace—maybe too slow, and I had time to think and ponder and ask myself what I wanted out of life, my fear won out and after only eleven days, I went home.

I’m grateful to have had the experience to see that not all of our troubles melt like lemon drops if we can just get to the other side of the rainbow. More than changes in location, we often just need to change our perspective. But as with me, the change in location provided the change in perspective.

I have still sought for the small-town feel throughout my life—especially during the hard parts of the journey, but I’ve come to realize that what I’m really looking for is something internal—inner peace. Ultimately is what I desire is to live in a different and better time not necessarily a different and hopefully better place. Is what I’m yearning for is to live in Zion during the Millennium. But until then, I need to be able to create a small-town, Zion-like person in me so that if it occurs within my lifetime, I will belong there.