5 Lessons I Learned as a Big-City Person Moving to a Small Town
Before going off to college, I had spent all of my conscious years in concrete jungles of tall buildings. I was one among millions of impersonal windows that would take a lifetime to individually explore; your typical big-city gal, I was used to drowning in busy streets and the constant rush of change. Constant ambient light and noise were habitual for me, part of an atmosphere that brought me serenity. Long story short, I would never have envisioned myself living anywhere other than in cities that never sleep.
Yet when the time for college applications rolled around in high school, I knew that this lifestyle would be compromised for financial reasons. I thankfully ended up finding my luck, and though I could not yet pinpoint its location on a map, the school seemed charming: it was in Europe, had the kind of curriculum I was looking for, and was also well-ranked enough to give my academic career a sufficient boost. Plus, I thought it would perhaps be about time I tried the small-city life I had never led. Looking back three years later, I’ve gotten the hang of a few realizations that I think anyone considering it should know:
Lesson 1: Everything is more accessible… to an extent.
I still remember the unexpected wide-eyedness I felt the first time I visited my soon-to-be home. It looked to me like an Animal Crossing village in the best sense of the term: everything a city would need was only at arm’s reach. It only took a few minutes to walk from one store to another, to cross different parks and nightlife streets on which I could already imagine my future self frolicking. The simplicity of my new life was such that even the local Ikea felt like a touristy spot.
The downfall of this homeliness was the first-world problem of not having access to the metropolitan variety I was used to. While essential products were readily available, I remember needing to stock up on certain food and stationary items on each of my hometown visits in order to get access to specific or wider ranges of choices. In addition, the nifty town wasn't as easy as bigger municipalities to reach: it usually took about three different trains (sometimes more) from the country’s capital coupled with long waiting times to get to it. It was a terminal stop at the end of a line. The long and knotty trip fortunately more often than not felt worthwhile, though I never really got used to it.
Lesson 2: Discretion is harder to find.
A self-constructed myth that was debunked soon after moving was that small cities allow for more anonymity. I’m guessing that this assumption came from the fact that I associated a place’s fame with the degree of self-effacement one could get there. Boy, was I wrong: I remember telling my friends I was grateful there wasn’t anyone I didn’t like at uni, because the chances of running into them outside of classes was tenfold of what it would have been anywhere I had previously lived. The street-to-people ratio was infinitely larger than what I was used to, creating a sort of unintentional familiarity that made nameless faces much easier to remember. Each singular person’s presence made a visible difference, making my habit of camouflaging in a crowd much harder to upkeep.
Lesson 3: This one is more relevant to people of color.
My new home felt like a cozy village that emitted friendliness and a calmness that I had never yet experienced in my past metropolitan lives. However, one major downside I found in it lay in its lack of cultural diversity. Smaller cities naturally imply narrower demographics, and the one I moved to happens to be principally populated by central and northern Europeans. Although this homogeneity did feel a bit odd at first, it didn’t necessarily bother me. What did though, was a few consequences that came with this backdrop: by the time my first month of college ended, I had faced the most microaggressions than ever before. I was initially shaken by the preconceptions that some of the people had of other countries, and consternated by some of the racist stereotypes I had to defend myself from.
My mother often uses the term “small-city mindset” to describe close-mindedness, and I had never understood it until my college life began. Once I did think about it, I came to the conclusion that this phrase lacks some subtlety in the way it doesn’t envisage the privilege that comes with living in big, cosmopolitan cities. Most of the prejudice I dealt with usually sprung from the other person’s lack of exposure to other cultures, a gap that was always fulfilled in my own upbringing. As an adaptive strategy, I started seeing my irritation with some encounters as a sign of my own luck to have grown up in environments where differences were more common, and better accepted. Of course, that is not to say that big cities are exempt from any sort of racism, but the difference lies in that these unpleasant experiences in this small city made me feel lonelier as not many people around me could relate to them.
Lesson 4: You will be forced to embrace your own company.
The main fears I had before moving pertained to the boredom I could feel in a place where lives move at a slower pace. Indeed, a couple of years later, I’d felt like I had made one too many laps around a big garden that reeked of quietness and where every day looked like the next. Despite being a natural introvert, I was still used to largely relying on distractions to keep myself entertained: I loved walking around for hours looking for new places, galleries, and neighborhoods. Before college started, I hadn’t ever really had to check just how long I could tolerate a life free from self-effacing diversions.
Small cities help make you cognizant of how internally well-rounded you are. They force you to create an inner shell independent of external influences. Having to lean on my own hobbies and headspace more than ever before gave me a better sense of where my mental health was. Even more than that, it assured me that I liked myself enough to know I could have my own back if I’d been, let’s say, stuck on a deserted island.
Lesson 5: The notion of a “big city” is relative, and so are living preferences.
As much as I appreciated my new home, I couldn't help but always look forward to my next trip. It was an impulse I couldn’t control and that made me feel infinitely more pretentious than some of my peers, who’d come from even smaller areas that still didn’t get tired of our new common home. Noting this difference in perspective made me think more about the idea of the proportionality of a given experience for individuals from different walks of life. My past normalcy in huge cities would have been overwhelming to someone, and to someone else an immense privilege that I had taken for granted. The surprise I felt upon hearing people talk about how small they felt in a city I had already grown tired of grounded me. As rudimentary as this may sound, it was only then that I understood how different people thrive in different environments; the “what works for you may not work for me” type of thing.
As I’m now getting ready to return to my college town to get my diploma, I’m thankful for the time I spent in this little haven. Although I have come to the conclusion that I will most likely stay a big-city gal for a while, who knows — maybe I’ll slow down someday and find my peace living in a little farm, far from all the haste. ◆