Small Town living

Most of the time I'm happy that I live in a small town. The benefits of living here, versus living somewhere "in the City" are many - no rush hour traffic, no trouble finding a parking spot, reasonably priced housing, good schools, low crime rate, etc, etc.

The one thing that could be seen as a positive, as well as a negative, is that most people know everybody in town. It's good because, well, you know most everybody in town. It's bad because that means most everybody in town knows your business.

I've been here for basically my entire life. I did go away to college, but came right back for some reason. Oh yeah, I remember know, it was for a boy. More on that a little farther down.

We have roughly 7,200 people here in town. It's about a 10 minute ride to many surrounding small communities and about 20 minutes to good shopping. We're right smack dab in the middle of nowhere - 60 miles from Peoria, 60 miles from the Quad Cities, and about 125 miles from Chicago. Interstate 80 runs through the north end of town and the Amtrak station is at that end of town too. I can get anywhere I want/need to go/get without much effort.

I went away to college and made sure I was far enough away from home to be away from home, but close enough to home that I could get home without it taking too long. I figured 300 miles was good, so off to Charleston, Illinois and Eastern Illinois University I went. I loved it there. If things had been different I would have probably stayed in that area, or gone farther south yet - I do like the St. Louis area an awful lot.

Shortly after I started my "senior" year at EIU I started dating a guy from home. We were in High School together and was never anyone I thought I'd end up with. I actually pretty much hated him in High School. Should've been a clue.

Things got harder and harder with the long distance relationship. I would have rather spent time with him than worry about anything at all to do with school. Eventually, I dropped out before I was kicked out for lack of academic performance. I do blame that on him, maybe I shouldn't but, if not for our relationship I would have been much more focused.

On July 15, 1995 we got married. We were both 23. We were the first of the group of his buddies to be married. Doomed from the start.

In January of 1996 he moved out. In March of 1996 our divorce was finalized. We had no kids, no assets, only bills bills bills.

In the time that we've been divorced we've both lived in this same small town the entire time. We both remarried. We both had kids. He got divorced again. (Ha!) For some amazing reason, we rarely ever cross paths. I'm not complaining, at all. Like I always say, there's a reason we're divorced.

Last night I went to the Met at my normal time to work out. When I dropped my card at the desk the girl working made a weird look at me and kind of motioned into the cardio room. So I look in there to see what she's motioning at and there he is. On the machine right fricking next to the one I wanted. Figures.

Oh well, plenty of other things to choose from, I pick a treadmill out of his direct view and get going. There are tinted windows to the pool below just in front of the line of treadmills so you can look into the windows and see behind you pretty well. The asshole stared right at me the entire time, it was very obvious. Believe me, if looks could have killed I would have been on the floor dead in 2 seconds flat.

Being the bigger person, I keep going until my workout was done. I even smiled at him when he finished before me and got his stuff from the table just off to the side of the treadmill I was using.

So, when I went to check out and get my card back, the girl asks me how things went. I told her it was about as comfortable as getting a root canal without novocane.

I don't get it. I mean, I don't want him to be my friend - not at all. But we live in the same fricking small town and we're going to run into each other from time to time. I guess it's too much to ask that he acknowledge that we spent 5 years of our lives together. I mean, I seriously get more from strangers I pass walking on the street.

He needs to grow up and realize that HE is the one that walked out of the relationship. Time has passed. I'm happy with my life. I wouldn't change a thing, well, maybe I would erase that asshole.