Before I came to the Valley, I wondered how I’d survive without all the amenities I had in the city. Maybe I even started to take some of it for granted.
Coffee shops and Wi-Fi on every corner, public transportation on the days you don’t feel like driving, shopping at your finger tips, and visiting with all the people who make my life feel so full and warm.
And then I arrived.
Lets be real, The Gathering Tree more than provides my coffee and Wi-Fi fix, and I don’t exactly need public transportation to get around the Village, however shopping and visiting with the many people close to me, these are difficult tasks in a small town, no?
Well, no, and this was just brought to my attention in the most direct way.
A friend of mine works in the logging industry, and for whatever reason, he needed to buy a laser pointer last week.
Where do you buy a laser pointer in the Robson Valley? I would guess Home Hardware, but if not, you’re out of luck.
But this friend of mine didn’t give up, as he really, really wanted this laser pointer. In all of this, I didn’t ask what he needed the thing for.
He ordered one online, I’m not sure where from, but the options are endless. Starting from Amazon or going directly to a manufacturer’s website, you can order almost anything you’d like online.
I personally got every bit of Christmas shopping done online, even going as far as to order plants. You can order plants on the Internet, and have them shipped to your house.
It’s a weird world we live in.
But it’s not limited to online shopping. None of my family or friends from Winnipeg live here, obviously, so our friendship suffers, right?
Well, any suffrage any of my relationships have endured due to distance is more a lifestyle and time management issue than anything else.
Technology allows for distance to no longer be an issue. Apps like Skype and like FaceTime make seeing the loved ones you miss so easy, with a click of a button, you can have a face-to-face conversation.
If you lived on the west coast and your sister lived on the east coast, even 10 years ago, a conversation like you can have today was far less accessible, and cost far more.
And even now, I’ll hear my friends back home say, “It’s probably hard on Evan, being so isolated and living in such a small town.”
But simply put, I love where I live, and frankly, I don’t feel isolated at all.
Though rural communities still face challenges urban centres do not, in a general sense, I have access to everything someone in the city does. Certain goods do cost more, for instance, but there is some level of choice in living where we do.
But we all choose this lifestyle, because it’s worth it to us, for a variety of reasons.
And in the grand scheme of things, living in a small rural town in today’s society, well, doesn’t feel like you do.
