I have lived in three different types of places during my twenty-six years.
I spent my first ten years in a large village, on a council estate. Granted, council estates then were not what they are now but they still were quite rough places. I can't say it ever overly intimidated me but that's because I was young and knew no other way. I had wonderful friends. In fact, my favourite time of life (not including the present) were those first ten years. Primary school still holds my fondest school memories and everyone I've spoken to since who attended the school have said the same. It was just a very fun, safe school. All of us were mixed in together, there was no segregation (apart from those taught in Welsh and those of us taught in English), and, to my knowledge, there was very little snobbery. Perhaps because we were all so young we didn't know what it was. Of course, there was bad times. I fell out with my best friend during the last few years and we were very nasty to each other. Jemma became ill. Things at home were strained. Yet the village life was fun. It was very gossipy but there was always the option to shut the door and lock it out.
I spent the next ten-or-so years submerged in country life, in a house that sat at the very top of a hill away from the village below. It was beautiful. The green fields, the cows, the sheep, the rain, the sun - it all looked amazing. School life was awful. This was where I first learned of snobbery, making the fatal mistake of ditching a very good friend because the other girls I was friends with thought her common. I spent my school life flitting from one group of friends to the next - as we had done in Primary school. All of us together, all of us friends. Comprehensive school doesn't work like that, though. I'm sure my memories of country life are sullied by the fact that I had serious surgery and found myself friendless and alone. Living in a house on a hill sounds wonderful but in practise it can be very lonely. Of course, I have to thank it for sending me inside myself for without it I wouldn't be a writer today. I found country life lonely but, as I don't particularly like people fluttering around me that much, it had its own charms.
For the last two years I've lived in a town. The independence is great. I can get everything I want for myself without having to rely on a lift or the bus. We're lucky in that we live by the beach, as well, so the views are still pretty. But I have to admit to not liking it very much. I miss the friendliness of country life, where people would wave at you from the roadside and always say hello when they passed you by. These days the only people who stop and talk are other dog-walkers. In a town you keep your head down and your eyes to yourself. The independence is great, though. When we move it'll be that that I miss. Because I can't drive and doubt I'll ever learn considering I am extremely nervous in the car.
So where does that leave me now? Where will Ray and I be setting up our marital home and starting our new lives together? We have some ideas. None of them are concrete and as indecisive as we both are I'm sure they'll change again and again before an actual move is made. I'll be happy to leave town life behind, even though I will mourn my independence. I'd be sceptical about returning to a real country life because I've had such a bad experience before and because I worry I'd be very lonely. So that leaves village life. A local shop, a good school, neighbours who talk to you and - shock upon shock - maybe even new friends.
But of course all these feelings I have towards the different lifestyles - village, country, town - really depend on the emotions I had whilst living there. When I make my own family we'll make new memories and the old ones will fall away. Given the choice, where would you choose to live?
FEELING: thoughtful |  |
Labels: family, house stuff, life
