We Traded Convenience for Freedom

Hi Friend!

As I was walking with my son by the creek today on our morning adventure, I was thinking about how I traded a life of convenience for this beautiful life of freedom.

We traded a life of convenience for this beautiful life of freedom. 

- Reading Through Infertility

You see, when my husband was in the interview process for the job that he currently has, the one that relocated us here, one thing I was asked over and over again is will I be ok out in a rural area that doesn't have a Costco or Walmart or shopping centers or a variety of restaurants or Door Dash. Will I be ok at a place where the town shuts down at 9 P.M. and the nearest city is 3 hours away. 

When we talked to friends and family about the move they were shocked that the closest Costco is 3 hours away from us! "But where will you go shopping?" they asked, even though we told them there are local stores over here. 

When we moved here we gave up convenience. We got a taste for that back when we were here for a week while my husband was interviewing and seeing the site. When he woke up at midnight with tooth pain and we didn't have any pain killers with us. So he went out to the main lobby and found out that they didn't cary anything and the town was already shut down for the night. 

We became even more aware that we gave up convenience when we bought the only house in our price range site unseen because it was literally the only house available under $600,000. And it continued to be the only house at that price for months and months after we bought it. 

When we moved here and started remodeling our house, we learned very quickly that Door Dash is not a thing here, and that if we wanted to get dinner, because we had yet to go grocery shopping we had to drive to the town over! (We were very busy moving, remodeling, unpacking. All within the first week we got here because Dakota only had a week off work before he started his new job.)

Yes, we might only have three grocery stores total in the town over that is 15-20 minutes away (there is nothing in the town we live in!). And yes, there is a movie theater (once again, in the town over) that shows two movies at a time. And we actually do have a Marshalls (It was just put in before we got here, and yes it's in the town over). There are some restaurants and fast food places, and if we don't like those options, too bad, we have to drive three hours if we want something different. 

We traded convenience for freedom.

Where we used to live, we had all the convenience, but if I wanted to take my son to a creek to play or take him somewhere quiet to ride his bike, or take him hiking, we had to drive a ways to find that. Not only that, but the weather was not always that great, and we were surrounded by roads, houses, businesses. 

Here we have found freedom. I might not be five minutes away from a store or McDonalds, but I am five minutes away from being surrounded by nothing but mountains and the open sky and free, wild land.

That's just not something you can have when you have convenience. 

I guess, I have just been feeling extreme gratitude that this move was possible and that I have found so much more than I lost when we moved here.

I have found so much more than I lost when we moved here.

- Reading Through Infertility

As I said, we are still pretty new here. Maybe the novelty of living in a new place will wear off and we will miss the conveniences we used to have, or maybe not. For now, I am loving life in a small town!

If you live in a rural, small town, what is something you enjoy about it, and what is something that is challenging about it?

As always, thanks for reading!