I was planning on continuing with my Fashion Friday posts, but my inner timer got all messed up since Thursday was a day off, but yet I had to work Friday. I also didn't wear any outfits that felt "photographable" to me, and honestly I find taking photos without a tripod a lot more time-consuming and annoying. So I just couldn't be bothered. I'm still going to do this series, but I may wait until I get a tripod (*fingers crossed for Xmas! I put a word in with the powers-that-be, aka my mom). In any case, I should probably come up with some kind of photo-taking schedule because I'm one of those people that, if I don't schedule things (ya know, pencil them in), I will avoid them or forget. I dunno, we'll see!
Life gets in the way sometimes I guess, doesn't it? Wily Bastard.
Anyhoo, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately (which isn't really abnormal for me) about many things, one of them being how much I love my neighbourhood. Mainly what I love is how central it is - since I've started working this temp job, I've been walking to work every morning and it's been great to get the extra exercise, fresh air, and invigorating start to the day. And it only takes about 25 minutes.
Not too shabby. I also work within a 10 minute walk to anything I could possibly need or want - banks, stores, coffee shops, etc. Needless to say I'm loving the convenience and the rush of being around so many sights and sounds.
In fact, I've always been this way - I've always had the need to have hustle and bustle around me (not too much mind you, but at least some). I've never really been content with quiet and slow. This notion is actually tied to one of my life mottos, for which my blog is named (which shows how tied up in my personality this need for motion and stimulation is).
The last guy I dated (before we moved in together) lived with his parents in a rural area about 30 minutes outside the suburban city where I lived at the time (just across the harbour from where I live now). 30 minutes out doesn't seem like that far, but it sure as hell seemed like it when I drove out there and back; we're talking two lane highway, no lamps, no guardrails or fence in some places, and a speed limit of 100 km/hr in some spots. I used to completely dread driving out there then having to drive home in the dark - and I mean DARK ('blacker than the inside of a cow', as my mom would say). Not only that but there was also the constant chance of a deer or something larger bounding across the highway at any moment, hitting a patch of black ice, or some jackass hick speeding around you and knocking you off the road like a pinball.
I HATED driving home from out there in the dark and did it white-knuckled and tense-shouldered the entire way. Every. Single. Time. All I kept thinking to myself (aside from the worries of impending sudden death) was "I would never in a million years want to live that way the bleep out here!!" (except I didn't actually say "bleep").
I'm a city-girl and that's just the way it is. I can certainly see the advantages to living outside the city - more space, more green, quiet, safer, better schools, cheaper real estate, yadda yadda yadda. I can certainly understand why people move to such areas. I can certainly understand the value of quiet and clean air and just...space, sometimes. Everyone needs that once in a while. But there's a difference between doing it once in a while to recharge, and doing it every day and it's just not something I could handle every day. I can't even sit at home without the tv or music on (too quiet - gah!!).
I love the rhythm that living in the city brings. I love having so many options for things to do, places to go and events to attend. I love being able to call out for food whenever I don't feel like cooking and have it show up at my door within 30 minutes. I love being able to sit on a bench or in a coffee shop and watch the myriad of human beings pass by in all their quirky glory. I love stepping outside my door and seeing countless families, couples, dogs, cats, strollers and kids marching by, in a rush to get somewhere or just enjoying gawking like me.
Sure, the city can be dirty, crowded, inefficient, and unfriendly sometimes, but the pros far outweigh the cons for me. I love feeling like a part of a living, breathing, moving, changing organism like a city - like I'm one small cog in this giant machine that just keeps running no matter what and that maybe, in some small way, I help keep it running. I sort of look at the city in that way - as a great, big living thing that's always changing colour and sound like a quickly rotating record player, much like This one.
I love to take excursions to quieter, smaller places to recharge my batteries once in a while, but usually after a couple of nights I'm itching to get back to the place I truly belong. The place that never sleeps, and will never put me to sleep.
So are you a city person or a country person? Or a combo of both? What attracts you the most to your chosen place to live?
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Thank you so much for reading!