Home Sweet Home
By: Jamie Venezia
Small towns are difficult to define.
In a movie, small towns are always portrayed the same: 1) everyone knows each other and 2) there is no open thought allowed. For years, I thought movies hit the nail on the head. I hated small towns, and I will admit, I still hold some familiar contempt with them, in the same manner one would a parent or some other authority figure whose job it is to be the bearer of rules and all things dreary. Small towns are delicately boring. Movies like Footloose and Cars and such show small towns as being homely at best and ignorant at worst. People ban music because apparently dancing is the “Devil’s Pass-time” and everyone is not only religious, but overly zealous and partially satanic sort of religious. Most city-folk think of small, Southern towns as that village in Children of the Corn, with people being overly religious to the point of murder and modestly dress to the point of a lack of ankles and elbows.
There are certainly drawbacks to living in small towns, though I cannot, at present, say one of them is frequent satanic-like murder. Some of the drawbacks are everyone knowing each other, which may seem quaint for a day, but becomes more of a nuisance. When I broke up with one of my boyfriends in high-school, I heard about it from everyone. Teachers came up to me and asked if I “wanted to talk”. People I did not know claimed they were his life-long friends and had a million questions. Even a custodian came up to me at one point and asked if I was so-and-so’s ex. They all wanted to know the reason why. If you were to ask me, it was none of their business why, but such is the burden of a small town. I felt so exposed at that point in time; like everyone was now watching me, waiting for me to give them a reason to gab all over town about my many flaws. It can be like walking on a bed of nails, trying carefully not to puncture the delicate and unprotected foot, which is nerve-wracking even to the strongest of will.
After a while of this, painfully trying to be perfect and not screw up any longer, I forgot my sorrows and engaged in a theatre competition. I wrote a play and sent it off to be judged. What happened was astounding; I won! I actually won an award for my writing, something almost as near and dear to me as my love for my family. I was the happiest I had ever been, smiling ear-to-ear and dancing through life. When I got to school the next day, I was more surprised than when I had won. Everyone congratulated me!
My teachers made announcements. My ex-boyfriend’s friends told me I did a great job. Even the custodian gave me her two-cents on the matter. Suddenly, it did not feel so much that the small town had a choke-hold on me…it seemed more like a hug.
While nosey and inconvenient, sometimes the benefit of a small town is that you discover friends and supporters that you never knew you had.
That can be extraordinarily pleasant.