There are pros and cons to living in a small town.  The same, of course, could be said for living in a big city. There are 2 layers to small-town life though.  It makes a difference whether you are Here, or whether you are From Here.  I have (essentially– from 6 months old) lived here my whole life.  The Husband was born here, as were both our kids.  My folks knew a lot of people in town, because of their business connections and service clubs they belonged to, but they were From Away.  And it is just different.

Take yesterday, for example.  I took the girl child to my hair salon to get her end-of-second-year-Uni hair do.  In total, we saw less than 10 people during the few hours we were in there. But, because this is a small town…

~Our hairdresser, Bev, is a girl I went all through school with.  She lived 3 blocks from me growing up

~Her business partner, Deb, is the daughter of the late Helen. Helen was my previous hair dresser, throughout my 20’s and 30’s.

~Helen worked at the main Beauty Salon in town, now long gone.  It was called Modern Beauty Salon and run by the sweetest little lady named Kathy.  Kathy gave me my first hair cut, and she gave my daughter HER first hair cut (and she even made an exception for my son, although they didn’t “do men’s hair”-I can still hear here chuckling when she said that to me– and of course she made an exception for me).

~While we were mid-hair-do-s, Bev’s best friend Betty came in. Now, Betty lived right next door to Bev, and they have been best friends always.  And Helen was her sister, and so Deb is her niece.

~I sat looking around the room at this multi-generational, interconnected group of women, from my 19 year old daughter to the 70-something lady seated next to me who was taking in all of our chatter and gossip and giggling and connecting.

This is what it means to be Here, and to be From Here.