Life In A Small Town

Just a small town girl
Livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere

I grew up in a town with fewer than 1100 people in it.  I left that town in 1987 and moved to a quaint little college town in SE Ohio that had approximately 15,000 people, include the 1200 or so students at the college.

While I was living there, I did not appreciate that small town.   I did not enjoy that nothing was open past 5:00 most days and that there was very little to do after-hours.  I did not fully comprehend the simple joy in being able to walk everywhere and have someone call out a cheery and friendly hello as you went.  I spent almost ten years of my life in that town and left it for a bigger city.  

I've been all over the country and have seen many small towns and many big cities.  My eyes sparkle at the vast array of possibilities and opportunities that larger cities offer.  However, lately, my heart has been yearning for something smaller and simpler.

I like Virginia Beach.  I can't exactly say that I love it.  I liked it better when it was a goal, something I wanted to achieve.  I liked it better when I was a tourist coming to town once a year.  I often joke that I went to the beach more when I didn't live here.  I don't like how much things cost here.  I don't like how people drive here.  I don't like that the friendliness and hospitality I saw as a tourist doesn't always exist outside of the tourist trade and definitely doesn't exist past Labor Day.

I have an affinity for water.  I know in my heart I want to live some place where there is access to ocean water.  I thought Virginia Beach was the place.

When I came here on vacation, I would cry the entire plane trip back to Ohio because I hated leaving.  I couldn't wait to come back.  I created such a fantasy about how great it was going to be to live here in my head that I didn't stop to think that there might be a chance I wouldn't be able to live near the water all year and would have to live inland in an over-priced apartment, which I refuse to give up because it's only 5 minutes from work and I like being able to leave the office at 4:00 and be inside my apartment and changed into comfy clothing by 4:15.

That said - I've been having weird dreams this week about a small town.  I don't know where this small town is, but it is near an ocean.  It is not Virginia Beach.

In my dream, there are these great "gingerbread" style houses, tree-lined streets.  Kids playing.  People stopping to say hello.  There isn't a lot of car traffic.  You can hear the ocean and smell the ocean.  There is a main-street area with locally-owned shops laid out in a square of sorts.  There is a small park with a fountain and benches.  There is sand on the cobble-stone streets and low-lying grasses in the yards.  You can hear gulls and other water fowl. The lap of the waves is very soothing.

I want to live there.   It reminds me of Marietta, Ohio and Stars Hollow (the fictional hamlet from the tv show Gilmore Girls.)  It has this New England meets Midwest feel.  But, with an ocean.  Not a lake.  Not a river.  Not a Bay.  Ocean access. 

There's a marina in an inlet with rows and rows of pristine boats and wooden docks.  Fresh seafood signs.  Friendly fishermen offering you samples and making jokes while they walk around in their waist-high waders.

I would miss my friends here in Virginia Beach, but if I could find this place and find a job in this place, I'd probably move there tomorrow.

Maybe I just realized what my "true dream" is.