small town, usa

This post is being re-posted because I was lucky enough to be featured on Blogtrotting! Go over here to see the article - thank you Blogtrotting!

I live in a town that's still so small we only have one red-light. There are no traffic cameras. There are no daily fender-benders, cars honking their horns or people getting swide-swiped by vehicles while crossing the road.

There are two gas stations. Two fast-food places to eat. One grocery store. Two banks. One pizza joint. One primary school. One Dollar General store. One motel. One factory. One main drag of highway. And a million little white churches.

This place, nestled in the mountains in southwest Virginia, is my home. The only home I'll ever need to know and love. I've day-dreamt my life away before, imagining other places I could go and live. But at the end of the day, when the fantasies fade away, this is the only place I want to be.

I know it's a little backwards. I know it's a little slow. I know that culturally, we're a little behind some other parts of the world. But this place is a bubble, and so I take the good with the bad. When my child gets old enough, she can go play outside in the yard, run in the woods, climb mountains if she wants to. She can swing from trees and get her feet wet in creeks. She can float down rivers. She can do whatever she wants here.

We have four distinct seasons. A hot, humid summer. A cold, snowy winter. A rainy spring. And my favorite, a crisp fall. I love the air here, the smells, the feeling of the wind at all different times of the year. There is nothing about my hometown that I would change. Not the people, the sights, the speed of life. I love it all.

And it is here, that I want to raise my children. Build my home. Bury my body. I never want to leave, regardless of what others might say about this little dot on the map. I am at home here, in my hometown. I carry it with me when I leave. And I treasure it forever more every time I return.

This is my home. My little town in the mountains. My great valley.