Country living is not what I thought it would be. I had my doubts about moving out to the middle of corn and soybean fields after living the complete opposite lifestyle in the city and suburbs, but these past three months have proven me wrong. I do not see country living as “boring” or uneventful as I once thought. Instead, I associate living “out in the country” as a way to be at peace with oneself, life, God, and nature. There is time to think. What a thought… time to actually sit and think! I never knew that to be possible. In my previous life, that of the Kristen who was the city girl, I would say that I was “bored” if I had ten minutes to kill before heading off to my next scheduled event just after crossing the last one of my list. (Oh, that list that just went on and on. Even if I had crossed off half of the things I needed to do, a few more bullet points would appear out of nowhere. Now, I do not have a list. Instead, I have a few things that need to get done once a week when I head into town before heading home after work, but it’s the basics: go buy groceries....umm...did I say “few”...that’s really it.) I now am no longer “bored” but just content. Content with having time to read a good book before I go to bed, content with chatting on a phone with a friend while doing nothing else but paying full attention to the conversation, content with looking out my window and seeing maybe one car drive by at night, content with driving to and from work watching the sun rise and set over the fields without the worry of traffic, content with having my bowl of cereal for breakfast just as I watch the morning fog lift off the tops of the corn stalks, content with life, content with love, and content with myself. Those first few weeks after the wedding stress/bliss/excitement calmed down, I found myself, guess what, bored. I was miserable sitting in my new house trying to find things to do to keep me busy. I would go for walks by myself through the corn-lined roads only to get really lonely because I didn’t have anything but corn to look at. I woke up every morning before opening my eyes with the thought, ‘Please, please, please let me be in my apartment in the city so I can just walk downstairs and out the door to go do something besides being bored.’ But every morning I would wake up to my new room, in my new house, with a husband already hard at work, to a house waiting for my boredom. You could say I was bored before I even woke up…how lame is that?!
But now I am not bored. I am relaxed and at peace with my new life and lifestyle. I have school to keep me busy during the day (which by the way, I love my job and my new students), but at night I can go home and relax without being stressed about having lots of school work to get done. Let’s just say, this weekend was the first weekend I’ve brought work home (for all my teacher friends, you know how big of a deal that is)!!! I have the opportunity to really develop my relationship with my best friend, my husband, even if that means sitting in a tractor with him when he is busy at work during this harvest season. And I have a peace in my heart that I’ve never experienced before. A peace that tells me that this is where God wants me to be right now.
So yes, country living isn’t what I thought it would be. I went through detox of my once hectic lifestyle and the period of desperately missing my friends and family. But now, I am happy with the opportunity to really get to know myself. I was scared to be alone without the people who I always counted on to make me happy, but now I find my happiness and company in the little things. The corn surrounding my house and my life is my constant reminder that you reap what you sow. I would like to think that I am sowing my new life into the heart of what it means to be alive, and I think that I have already started to reap the happiness of getting to know myself and what life is really all about.
…I’ll let you know how it goes!
-Kristen
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