Small town vs City life

Simply Bike recently wrote a post recently where she lamented the smallish college town she is living in and tries to come to terms with being there.  She wishes for a bigger city.  The irony is that her small college town likely isn't that much smaller than the "city" I live in.

I have to confess I know how she feels.  Don't get me wrong.  I have no desire to move to Edmonton or Vancouver.  I am not a big city girl.  No.  I wish I was in a smaller town.  With more trees.  At the same time, because I'm big enough to admit the contradiction in my tastes, I also long to be closer to a big city.  I don't want to live in one, but it would be nice to have one about 2 - 3 hours away.  Five hours to Edmonton is just too far for a nice weekend visit.  Especially with toddler girl.  She can just about manage two and a half hours to Regina, but there is no way we could drive to Edmonton without having a shrieking kidlet in the back seat for the last couple hours of that drive.

Saskatoon gives me that odd mix where by it is too small to have great shopping while at the same time being too big to bike across easily.  Or easily for me anyway.  The bike trails are too broken up.  The grocery stores are too.... megamart for me.  There aren't enough trees and there isn't enough green.  The river valley is nice, but the trails aren't a short jaunt away.  I have to cross two major six lane intersections to get to them.

The bottom line is that I would not have chosen to live here.  I wasn't here before I met T and the girls.  I thought I was moving to town for a couple of years to go to school.  I wasn't planning on staying.  I'm here because family is what makes this place home.  Beyond the amenities,  the shopping, the restaurants, the trees and terrain, I am here because my family is here.  And I couldn't have found a better family if I had been looking for one.

At the same time I miss Pemberton.  Not really the wacky political stuff that was happening in the health region at the time, but the people, the setting and the community.  I wasn't there for long, but somehow it still feels the most like home to me.  I know you can never go back.  I just sometime wonder why I left.   The only way to answer that is that if I hadn't left I never would have met T and toddler girl would never have happened.