Somewhere else not so far away

Sometimes, I stand by my window and listen to the serenity of my environment at home and appreciate the peace and quiet I get most of the time. On other days, well, I could use a bit of neighbourly noise and drama, just like where we used to live many years ago.

Today's writing prompt asks about juxtaposing between living in rural and urban areas. I have never lived in an urban area, so my comparison will be between the suburban area I grew up in and the rural area I live in now.

Surburban places are generally better than rural ones if you're looking it from a modern perspective. You have more infrastructure—developed houses, schools, and even supermarkets. It was far easier to do things like buy groceries and take evening walks on good roads that probably have street lights, and your neighbours are likely not far away.

Taking very long walks was my thing as kid. I would walk in and out of streets and be glad about it. I'm way older and less energetic now, but I sure can't do that where I live now, and I'll get to that in a minute.

Surburban places like the one I grew up in mostly had residential homes, few small schools, and loosely-dense traffic on the roads. To own a home in such an environment became very expensive, and so we had to find much cheaper lands in rural areas to start up. Then we moved, and our lifestyle shifted.

The first problem we encountered was the lack of electricity. There was no infrastructure in place, so there was really no hope and we had to run on gasoline generators for electricity. That wasn't new to us anyway. Prior to moving here six years ago, we had already spent three years without electricity from the grid in the suburban area we moved from. Why? Well, it's a not-so-long story.

We had the electricity running in the community. It just wasn't stable, so many people were never excited about paying bills. We didn't pay our bills one time, and then they cut our electricity—literally, actually. They cut the cables coming in. It wasn't worth it paying for unstable electricity anyway—the kind that you'd experience blackouts for days—so we opted to use our gasoline generator. We did that for three years before moving. Apparently, we were preparing ourselves to live another five years of the same in the new environment—the rural one we're in now.

Thankfully, just last year, they built the infrastructure for electricity, and we're [sorta] enjoying it now. But there's more to being here in the rural environment. You see, there are roads, but the kinds that you'd always question the need to wash your car tyres every time.

There are many farms around me. We even have a farm of our own. And that's one of the perks of being in rural areas. You get to enjoy fresh foods, as you either get to grow your own or buy it cheaper from people around. But then, we don't get all that we need here. So when we need to go grocery shopping sometimes, for example, we would have to travel to the nearest suburban area. That can be inconvenient on some days.

There's the serenity being here, and I enjoy it most days. And with many of the amenities available, like electricity and backup power like a generator and solar energy system, I do very fine and okay being in this rural area.

Something I really miss about being in a suburban area is how easy it is to travel to urban areas or simply go anywhere. It's way less convenient being here in the rural area where I live, but you know, I have gotten used to it.