Heads Up...I'm gonna rant...

I got an email this morning from a 'friend' who said she wanted to let me know that she has deleted my blog from her Reader, and has deleted mailings from me on the Yahoo Groups she and I are both on, and apparently as of sending this note this morning to me, has deleted me from her contact list. Her reason? She said I seem to be too judgmental toward non-country living and breathing folks. Folks who live the country life as much as they can....the back to basics skills, the livestock, the gardening and putting by of their own fresh foods, folks living "old fashioned" lives.

In short, I have some kind of hatred for city folks.

First off, what's the cowardly point of emailing me some whiney cry-baby rant about "I'm not gonna be your friend anymore" and explain why you are deleting my existence from your online life? Sure, I like having friends as much as the next, and it's rather sad when a friend disappears off my list, but what's with the throwing a stick at my window and running away when I turn around? Hello...that is very grade school childish. Instigate and run. Cowardly at best.

I suppose I should make some sort of honest apology here for the fact that I'm fairly transparent and say what I mean, when I mean it. I am not a waiver in the breeze kind of person. I do not alter my opinions based on the current winds of wishy-washy acquaintances around me. I am who I am, and within a couple blog entries it should be pretty apparent who that is, what I believe and where I draw my lines.

The issue with this friend is based on a couple of email conversations we've had recently about her living in the country. Her husband isn't home much as he works in another city, and she is home with their 4 children under 10 by herself, in the house they built, out in a small town country village for a couple weeks at a time. She instigated the conversation wanting to know what I thought she should do about being so far away from everything and everyone, how do I handle my family with my own husband gone so much, etc.

I asked why they built something so far from his work. Seems they 'have always wanted to live in the country' and the land was pretty when they bought it.

Ok, yes I probably have an issue with city dwellers moving to the country. City folks come to the country claiming they want to live there, slower pace, all that stuff. What do they do shortly after arriving? They whine and complain like a 2 yo about how far everything is, how the farmer down the road runs his tractor/combine etc on the roadway slowing traffic, how it's dusty from the field work, how noisy the animals are, how they 'smell' when the wind is right, how they don't like driving on inferior gravel roads...the list goes on.

Or they move to the country, build a house they can't afford in the first place, then off goes husband to find better paying work and wife dear is left, essentially dumped in the country as a single parent. She discovers pretty quickly that she never wanted 'the country life' in the first place and now she complains constantly about all the things listed above and then some.

I asked said friend about things like gardening, homeschooling (she does, and complains about that as well...) and asked if these were things she'd be doing if she lived in a city again. No, probably not, because her children need friends and socialization (oh that seriously chaps my attitude when folks use that word as an excuse...) and in the city she'd have better access to decent quality foods at better stores.

Yes, by this point in the multiple emails, I was probably not as nice and polite as I could have/should have been. When her husband is home they leave the house in the country and stay with his parents in the city. I don't get that at all, and asked again what the point of building in the country was. She decided I wasn't being much of friend because I wasn't sympathetic toward her problem.

No, I don't guess I was. It wasn't exactly 'intentional' but no, I wasn't sympathetic. From my view thru her window of life, she and her husband have some pretty fundamental core issues they better address before they end up divorced. They aren't living the same life at all. He is doing his thing in the city and she's moaning and complaining in the country. They knew building the house where they did what life was like, and more importantly, what the job prospects were, yet they forged ahead like pouty children because they "wanted" that pretty property.

There is little, and these are her own words, 'family life' with his basically living in the city and her and the children living in this country setting. Yes, my husband is working in another city/state, and yes I myself am in a very rural setting away from "city perks" like fancy stores, activities and action. The biggest difference I can see from what she has shared is that I wanted the country long before we got here, and my husband actually MISSES his family time, whereas her husband seems pretty content to not have any of that.

Like I said, bottom line is they have serious marriage and family issues that need tending to. I'm sure location is adding to their issues, but there are a lot more deep seated troubles here than just location. Or am I the only one who sees that?

I dislike city folk who whine about their lot in life. I'm not biased. I dislike country folk who whine about their lot in life just as much. Your life is what YOU make it. Country or city, some folks are going to be whiny regardless. Me, I'd be far more whiny about being stuck in some over-crowded, subdivision dwelling where I have to be a Stepford Wife, or maintain the length of my yard to someone else's specifications. Still, location is very unimportant and isn't an excuse for complaining constantly. Some folks just aren't going to be 'happy' anywhere when they have so many other problems in their lives.

Does any of this strike you as contrary to what I have always said and believed? I didn't tell this friend to bail on the country and tend to her marriage first and her personal complaints second. If I had been utterly blunt and to the point I would have said
1) You and husband need to have some serious, deep discussions about what you both expect from your marriage and from each other. The sort of conversations that should have occurred long before you got married and had children.
2) If he is determined to be gone in the city all the time without his wife and children, sell the stupid country house and move to the city with him. You already don't like living in the country, so WHY STAY THERE?
3) TALK TO YOUR HUSBAND! Did I mention that you both have some serious marriage issues that need to be addressed??

If you aren't going to suck it up and make the best out of your self-inflicted lot in life, stop complaining about that lot. It's of your own making. Either take steps to CHANGE it or take steps to LIKE it. Whining isn't getting you anywhere.

That's as sympathetic as I can get, sorry. Dewey and I have had some knock-down drag out arguments in our time, but for the most part we've worked through them. I still have my issues and I'm sure he has several as well but fundamentally, we live the same life. I don't understand folks getting married and having children when they know so little about each other, they talk about nothing of importance really, and they obviously have no sense of what FAMILY means. This living your life while I live my own just makes no sense. I couldn't live that way :(

So, yes, I suppose I have issues with city dwellers. Not sure how that connects to this particular instance at all, but I suppose I'll apologize for that bias in my life.