I grew up in a close knit town. I went to the same K-12 school with the same 41 other kids. Coincidentally, my parents and all my aunts and uncles as well as most of my cousins are graduates from the same school. Almost all my family lives there. We pop into each others houses unannounced. Sometimes we leave treats and notes even if the other isn't home. We borrow, we help. We snack on each other's food. We run into dozens of people we know in the grocery store. We wave to the cars that pass. We depend on each other. We count on each other. We care about one another.
When I was first pregnant, I remember panicking. Not because I didn't want to have a child, we wanted a child with our whole hearts. I was nervous, really nervous, because I felt very isolated.
We had just moved into a cute little house in the Maine woods. A new state for both of us to live in. We were ecstatic and loved living here. Problem was, it was so secluded that no one even knew the place changed hands. No one welcomed us to the neighborhood. No one waved when they went by. No one knew our names. We were living in this little house in the woods, alone. I remember thinking, "I'm bringing a child into this world without any supports." My family a day's worth of travel, my husband's a plane ride away in the winter. And I was having a September baby. It felt a little overwhelming.
I guess it's good that I had all those feelings back then. It motivated me to welcome myself to the neighborhood. I baked for all the neighbors, and what do you know, we have fantastic neighbors! I befriended many, I'd visit and bring treats. Cars started waving when they saw me on my daily runs. We got invites to dinner. If I met someone interesting, I invited them over. I got brave and joined a Maine moms group-and many, many of those fabulous ladies are my good friends now.
Four years later, just yesterday, I was reminded how blessed I am. Set of neighbors #1 came over with dessert bars (thank you!), then two fantastic Maine families came over for a morning playdate. Then neighbor #2 came over, delivering scraps to feed our chickens (thank you!) and then a friend from college and her family were in the area and came for a playdate that afternoon too. And all that went on, I totally ran out of time to walk neighbor #3's cookbook back to her (oops, sorry!). Not only that, as I'm getting the mail, neighbor #4 waves. We're eating dinner and we holler 'hello' at neighbor #5 as he runs past. And with all that, we also chatted it up with new neighbors who bought bread (sold out again!).
And, did you see about our next event? We're having our annual Country Lovin' Kids charity next Monday, with simple games, good snacks and friends to help a charity. Last year we had over 50 people come, this year there's 13 families coming thus far!
My panic four years ago was over nothing. Isn't that how most stressful times end up? Frivolous worry. Sort of like when the rains, sometimes it rains hard. But the rain always dwindles and then disappears. And if you're lucky, you can see the rainbow straight away. We've been blessed with multiple rainbows just this year.
It's a good life, it really is. Nothing to worry about. I'm quite happy here. We live in vacationland, after all. It's Maine, the way life should be.
