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Old 10-24-2018, 10:44 AM   #61
FoolofaTook
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ah ok. sorry i am rather slow/dense. and this is when i'm sober...

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 10:57 AM   #62
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I reconnected with pre-drugs activities - I went to our little local church because I'd had a hill top experience one day, but I kept going every week for the music. I joined the little church choir, and started playing piano and organ for services. It was tough and awkward and I was around people in their 50s and 60s a lot, but actually they were often pretty wry and sarcastic (it was a rich area, so a lot of Maggie Smith types). Church has been more about making music collaboratively with others, than anything else, for me. Most of the time. That really helped.

Is there a writers group near you? I joined a writers group here in Singapore and it's been good.

But I hear ya. It gets worse for a while, as they get older. I always come away from school social gatherings feeling lonely and angry. But that seems to be winding down now for the older one, and high school seems to want less parental involvement.

I feel ashamed for not helping out with school stuff, so I volunteer - and then I'm stuck in a room with a bunch of women 10 years older than me, all talking about their house renovations, and humblebragging about test results and report grades. So choir and organ and piano helped give me a place where I could talk to people but it wasn't a perpetual competition.
The culture here is an Old West Town. There are horses and farm animals about, frequent rodeos and tractor pulls and everyone is into cars, steak, country music, and beer. There is only one elementary school for the whole place, and no major retail chains except McDonalds and Rite Aid. There's no mother group in general, and definitely not a writing group or book club. I am very much out of my element here, and honestly have zero interest in most of the community activities but I've gone to almost every one of them just to ensure that my daughter sees something other than the living room. I don't see how I'm going to meet any romantic partners or great friends around here, but surely as time passes I will find someone else who is out of place here....or look for people online that aren't too far. Considering I have a 1 year old there's only so much I can do about my social life right now. I'm sure things will improve by default when she gets to school age, unless I'm expected to ride a horse.

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 11:00 AM   #63
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There is a more populated and liberal area about an hour away, so I spend as much time there as I can (plus that's where the closest stores and medical care are lol). I don't understand people who romanticize small town life.

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 09:13 PM   #64
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Wow, that does sound pretty Old West Town haha. Can you move to the more populated and liberal area, anytime soon??

At least if it's a small town, housing might be cheap...and you can grow a garden in your yard...? And get some pets...I would love to have some rabbits and chickens again...I'm so sick of living in the sky

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 10:28 PM   #65
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Definitely no way for me to move any time soon, but that is the long term goal. I'm pretty patient.

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 10:29 PM   #66
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small towns suck i feel for you ilp

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 10:49 PM   #67
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thanks. it's been a big motivator for me to get my shit together and get us out, though, so my daughter can grow up in a more diverse and artistic culture. the one positive is that my neighborhood is extremely safe.

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 11:31 PM   #68
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That's a huge positive... A FB friend was mentioning recently how she was reading Henry Huggins to her kid, and how Henry got on the bus and rode to the swimming pool, had a swim, bought himself an ice-cream, and then was very late coming home because he couldn't work out how to get a stray dog onto the bus. That's the kind of freedom kids in small towns have I reckon...we lived in a suburb that was a lot like that, kids rode their bikes around everywhere and just hung out during the summer holidays because everyone lived a within a 10 minute bike ride of each other. My kids still miss that. Here, we're just a 10 minute bike ride away from a million more apartment buildings

Did your parents buy a house for you there? Part of the reason we've never lived rural is because we haven't been able to afford it - there's no work for either of us, even though the house prices are cheaper.

 
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Old 10-24-2018, 11:50 PM   #69
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i mean i lived in the suburbs and had the whole unsupervised riding bikes thing too, you don't have to live in a small town just not a built up city

rural living fucking sucks, at least in the usa. from what i saw.

- racism
- cowboy culture
- meth
- gotta drive for an hour to get anywhere, and not just grocery stores think hospitals, doctors, movies, hobbies
- "safety" as an illusion, good luck getting one of the five cops when you need one
- shitty internet
- allergies
- unsafe two lane highways

the only bright spot is yes, land/homes/real estate is cheap AF. but there's no competition so other stuff is just as expensive as cities, such as food. also, no jobs except once again driving an hour. but if you want a mansion on 2 acres you can basically get one for about 25% of the price as anywhere else

Last edited by reprise85 : 10-24-2018 at 11:57 PM.

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 12:25 AM   #70
ilikeplanets
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except houses are not cheap here!!!

Last edited by ilikeplanets : 10-25-2018 at 12:39 AM.

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 12:34 AM   #71
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the internet goes out nightly here. there have been a lot of people moving in because both Facebook and Apple have server farms not too far away, because Oregon doesn't tax them to death, and there is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of undeveloped land (well, maybe not by Aussie standards, ha). but the town was NOT prepared for the influx of people so things like cable and internet have zero reliability. and i have to leave town to buy groceries because mom and pop stores charge at least double the regular price, with limited selection. i avoid the meth crowd, but i can easily see where they'd congregate. and the roads are total shit and everyone is outwardly racist, homophobic, and just generally not aligned to my belief systems.

and my parents moved here for work, not for me lol. they HAD to buy a house because there are literally zero apartments here (families here have owned land since Oregon trail times, and they DON'T want to modernize), so in that aspect i'm incredibly lucky that there's enough space for the two of us to have a shared bedroom. i'm actually very grateful for my entire situation, of course, but that doesn't mean i like the town and want to build my future here or anywhere similar.

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 01:09 AM   #72
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ah I didn't realise you were living with your folks...for some reason I thought you were living separately in your own house. And I was trying to crack the code of how you managed that, because starting again on my own in a small town in a little cottage with a yard has a lot of appeal to me right now. Looks like I was projecting my fantasies onto your life. good one vixnix.

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 01:26 AM   #73
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If I could return to the original topic of the thread for a moment

my kids' school is having a trunk and treat or treat in the trunk or carbs car park lock-in or whatever they call it.

Parents had to book tickets online, and then collect wrist bands for the two time slots - only one slot per child. If you won life's ultimate genetic and good fortune lottery and somehow own a car, then you are invited to drive your car into the carpark and decorate it and give out treats, in which case, your children get a special wrist band and can be present during both sessions while you give other (poor, unfortunate, non-car-owning) people's children prepackaged carbohydrates from your vehicle.

Otherwise, you book your ticket, collect your wristband, and then show up to the school carpark to walk around getting sugar from the back of people's cars for an hour, but remember to bring your parental photo ID lanyard otherwise security will stop you at the gate, in which case you can hope that one of the teachers who is within earshot and is in a good mood, remembers who you are and can vouch for you.

What the fuck is this madness. What self-hating hollowed out person wants this kind of event to exist. You're supposed to be knocking on your neighbour's doors, not going miles out of your way to some other location. I didn't bother telling my kids it was happening and thankfully neither of them asked. I think they have a reasonable feel by now, about this sort of thing and how I will react

ugh

people

schools

getting halloween all wrong

fucking death

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 02:13 AM   #74
ilikeplanets
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ah I didn't realise you were living with your folks...for some reason I thought you were living separately in your own house. And I was trying to crack the code of how you managed that, because starting again on my own in a small town in a little cottage with a yard has a lot of appeal to me right now. Looks like I was projecting my fantasies onto your life. good one vixnix.
Yeah it's definitely not a fantasy I'm living. I'm a newly sober single mom. Not glamorous. What you're dreaming of leaves out the financial, physical, and emotional realities of where I'm at in my life. I would gladly switch to living in a well equipped city with a wealthy husband, but maybe the grass is always greener on the other side. I don't mean this in a hurtful way, it's just not something you experienced so it's hard to understand.

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 03:51 AM   #75
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He's not wealthy, considering where we live. We can't afford to buy a property on his salary alone. And we couldn't afford it in Sydney, either. I think that makes us pretty average.

And when we met...and for the first 9 years of our relationship, he wasn't wealthy by anyone's measure.

In 2005 when he started working full time as the only income earner for our family, his commitment to using open source software meant that he was only offered jobs that paid very little. We've lived through a lot of scarce times in our marriage and I don't doubt we'll need to do it again. Part of the reason that fussy eating annoys me is because it is unrepentant privilege to me. My kids had to eat beans and lentils and rice and canned tomatoes because it's what we could afford, for a good number of years. And we're about to do it all over again in New Zealand when we take on a mortgage again.

Staying married for the last 12 years and raising two kids hasn't exactly been easy. And Singapore is a well serviced city but it's also a pretty tiny place, geographically. You can't drive for one hour in any one direction without reaching either the sea, or a border checkpoint. And you're entering Malaysia then, so it's going to take the better part of another hour, just to get through to the other side. And you won't be driving at all, unless you're really rich - much richer than us. A toyota corolla starts at around $100k here, because of the government taxes on private vehicles. The cockroaches are massive here. Trash gets washed up on all the beaches from Indonesia. You can't see any stars at night because of light pollution. When you look at the horizon from the shoreline, you can hardly see it because of the dozens of freighters waiting to dock. It is horribly claustrophobic. Across the road, a piece of land was sold for 1 billion SGD, and it's now being developed into a condo. All we hear are construction noises all day.

I think the not knowing what it's like, and the fantasy that leaves out emotional and financial and physical reality definitely runs both ways...

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 09:26 AM   #76
ilikeplanets
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Definitely agree. Life is hard for everyone, and we all imagine that different circumstances make it better. Happy Halloween!! <3

 
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Old 10-25-2018, 09:31 AM   #77
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vixnix View Post
If I could return to the original topic of the thread for a moment

my kids' school is having a trunk and treat or treat in the trunk or carbs car park lock-in or whatever they call it.

Parents had to book tickets online, and then collect wrist bands for the two time slots - only one slot per child. If you won life's ultimate genetic and good fortune lottery and somehow own a car, then you are invited to drive your car into the carpark and decorate it and give out treats, in which case, your children get a special wrist band and can be present during both sessions while you give other (poor, unfortunate, non-car-owning) people's children prepackaged carbohydrates from your vehicle.

Otherwise, you book your ticket, collect your wristband, and then show up to the school carpark to walk around getting sugar from the back of people's cars for an hour, but remember to bring your parental photo ID lanyard otherwise security will stop you at the gate, in which case you can hope that one of the teachers who is within earshot and is in a good mood, remembers who you are and can vouch for you.

What the fuck is this madness. What self-hating hollowed out person wants this kind of event to exist. You're supposed to be knocking on your neighbour's doors, not going miles out of your way to some other location. I didn't bother telling my kids it was happening and thankfully neither of them asked. I think they have a reasonable feel by now, about this sort of thing and how I will react

ugh

people

schools

getting halloween all wrong

fucking death
what in the abomination of a dead god is this bullshit? that sounds joyless as fuckkkk

 
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