Moving out of the city and into the country has proven to be one of the best things I have been able to do in a long time. I’ve lived in Indianapolis for the past 2.5 years. My wife and I got married in ’03, and we moved to the city right after our honeymoon. I had signed on at Ball State University for my master’s degree, and we spent the next couple of years in the hustle and bustle that goes with a long commute and only just enough money to pay our bills. I-70 was our front yard, quite literally, and so the sound of heavy traffic was our constant companion. I completed my master’s degree this past summer, and I had started the job hunt in February. Finally, in November, I landed a professional position at Purdue University, with a start date of mid-December.
Then began the hustle and bustle of searching for a new place to live so that I wouldn’t have commute 3 hours round-trip from Indy to West Lafayette every day. We had the prerequisite of needing some land, since we needed a place to put our horses. We set goals of what we wanted, and God was gracious enough to provide us with exactly what we wanted. Now, we live in a small rural community, with a major highway close enough to be heard but not so close as to be obnoxious and with I-65 barely visible in the distance (at least at this time of year).
Since landing in our new home, our horses on our land with us, we are beginning to enjoy a much more laid-back way of life. Evenings are more open and available, weekends are busy while not being rushed. We have lots to do, but our timetable is stretched — we have the rest of our lives to get things done. It puts things into perspective a bit more, causes us to realize that there really is no hurry. I have to wonder now why we ever felt so rushed while living in Indy, and the best answer I can come up with is this — environment.
City living is, by nature, very rushed. Everyone is hurrying everywhere to get everything done. The idea is that life is short and so we must hurry to get everything done before we die. Living in the country brings a much different perspective to the table. Life is short, yes, but the important things have an entire lifetime to enjoy. All that hustling about is for things that, ultimately, end up being worthless. It’s about things that really don’t matter. What matters is serving God and spending time with family and touching the community. That gets lost in the city, where everyone is a stranger and everyone is in a rush to get unimportant things done.
My wife and I are looking forward to slowing down our way of life, relaxing and enjoying each other, and hosting people in our spacious home. Things are still somewhat busy for us — our apartment lease in Indy still has a few days until it expires and we have contractors in and out of our ‘new’ house on a regular basis as we start to collect quotes on home updates. But the prognosis is good, and already we both feel a greater sense of peace, happiness, and contentment.
We are obviously right where God wants us to be.
