ch-ch-ch-changes, part 1

on OCTOBER 14, 2017

Uprooting and moving to another country will mean many adjustments to everyday life. While mentally preparing for the move, many times I catch myself musing about those differences. Among the obvious ones (language, separation from family and friends, simpler life) there are many that are less obvious. My next several posts will chronicle a few I’ve been thinking about lately:

Population

I grew up in a relatively small but progressive town, Olympia, Washington. I vaguely remember the population being around the 25k mark most of my childhood. The growth in Olympia has been pretty slow (the 2010 census has it at about 46k). For contrast, the Burningman festival in Nevada has grown and surpassed that population in much less time. When considering college, I joke about wanting to move as far away as possible – I ended up in Boston. I craved something a bit bigger and have always had a wanderlust that pushed me to experience more. The East Coast wasn’t the best choice for me – I’m a West Coast girl, as I learned – but getting away was a good idea. Boston was a crash course in street smarts and taught me a lot about how different people are affected by their environment. Since then, I’ve always lived in bigger cities. Now I live in an area of over 7 million people. There is always too much to do and concurrently it is easy to be anonymous and slip into the push of the fray of humans constantly moving from point A to point B.

Living in Pescadero will be an incredibly different experience. I have never lived in a town this small. Likely there are more people than the 2010 census which puts the population at 2,338, but that is still a vast difference from 7 million. What will that be like? Firstly, I’m assuming that anonymity is nearly impossible. Even my introverted hermit of a husband can’t help but forming relationships with people in his environment. In the end of the day, there are only so many options when getting food, supplies and gas. We don’t even have an ATM – you have to drive 8 kilometers north to Todos Santos for that.

Another anticipated feature of small town living will be that our business is now also everyone else’s business. I’m not a very private person, but I do care about what people think about me – potentially to a fault sometimes. I’ve realized this is probably rooted in some ego issues and have been working on it, but it is there and it should be addressed. To save my sanity, I’ll need to let some of this go, but I also think it is wise to think about perception a bit – especially now. First impressions are powerful and not easy to overcome. Pescadero is slower, so the way I would handle a situation in a highly populated area may seem aggressive or curt in a small town. These initial interactions could end up painting a very different picture of myself than I would like. I’m not going to change who I am, I may just apply a little more empathy and think a bit harder about how my actions would be perceived. It is also a chance to grow. Maybe I’ll develop new strategies for avoiding the gossip that can be so damaging and corrosive. One can always hope!