I grew up in Northeast Los Angeles, California. I have always considered myself a "city girl." My friends and I used to buy season tickets each year for the Orange County Performing Arts Center. As a member of the Southern California Mormon Choir, I have had the opportunity to sing on the stages of the Hollywood Bowl, The Forum, and The Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. I have sung on the soundtracks of two videos. I have sung at a big Hollywood wedding. I have been to pretty much every museum in the greater Los Angeles area, most more than once. I have enjoyed the perks of city living.
In 2002, I moved to Placerville, California. Placerville is about an hour's drive northeast of Sacramento and has a population of just over 10,000. There is a quaint "Main Street", with antique stores, bookstores, a newspaper shop, and other assorted businesses. It is quite different from Los Angeles in many ways. I owe a great deal to my friend, Lynne, who invited me to live there and who introduced me to all of her friends. In almost no time at all, I felt like a part of things. I had friends. I felt cared about. I only lived there for 9 months but, ten years later, I can still go to Placerville and have people remember me and be glad to see me.
Flash forward to 2004. I married a wonderful man, who happened to grow up in Brawley, California. The latest Census shows the population of Brawley to be just under 25,000 people. I moved to Brawley to be with my new husband and got a job teaching school in the Imperial Valley. It took some time, but I eventually made friends within the Brawley ward. They are not people who socialize outside of church on Sunday. I have invited people to go out or to do something at my house and they always give me a vague answer to the effect of, "Oh yeah.....someday we'll have to do that...." They never do. But, on Sundays, they do make me feel welcome and cared about and a part of the ward family. I have made friends in the community as well. My colleagues at work, however, are a very different story.
Most of the people I work with grew up here and have never taught anywhere outside of the Imperial Valley. Despite my best efforts, the majority of them have not really accepted me into their circle and some of them are quite rude to me. It has really caused me to think: What on earth makes these people think that they are so great? Do they really believe that anyone outside of Holtville knows or cares a whit about the "Swiss Club" or that their last name could get them so much as a cup of coffee outside of this valley? It's a lot easier to be a cheerleader in a high school that has a total population of less than 500 than it is in a high school (like mine) where the population of the senior class is twice that. This entire valley does not have a single quality bookstore. It does not have a fabric store. There is one very small museum. The only musical theatre is put on by the local high schools. They have only had a Target store for about 5 years and the one mall in the entire valley has been here less time than that. So why on earth should they look down their noses at someone who dares to move here?
We will probably be here for at least another 4-5 years. I will be fine. I know how to do my job and I do it, whether people are kind to me or not. I am a teacher because I care about children and truly want to make a difference in the world. That will never change. I do not HAVE to have friends at work. It would be nice if I did but, after trying for the past 8 years and being used and lied about and thrown under the bus on more than one ocassion by someone who I truly believed was a friend, I am pretty done.
Hopefully, the next city we live in will be two things:
1. An actual CITY, not some little burg where people have a very over-inflated opinion of their self-worth and importance in the world
and
2. A place where we can feel welcomed and cared about.
I look forward to finding that place!
Come back here:)
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