Michael Braun's Blog

For the past two years (four if you count dorm life), I’ve lived in the city. Now, that city was Madison, WI, which is known for its friendliness and blah blah blah, and isn’t too big anyway, but nevertheless, it’s a city by my standards. I’ve been thinking that I could adapt to this city living. I can handle the traffic, the expense, and the people. And I like the benefits of having lots of stores within walking distance, a vibrant night scene for those infrequent times that I go out, and the pleasure of having a lot of company around should I want it. But as I look forward to beginning my lease with my new apartment, outside of Madison in the village of Cross Plains, I keep getting more and more excited. Why?, you ask.

For one, when I get home from work, I’m pretty bored. I guess this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to those people who work for a living and yet have no other responsibilities to anyone but themselves. I get home and if the dishes are put away, things are generally clean, I have something to eat for supper, and I have no plans with anyone else, then I just sit around. This is the exact reason that I am typing this right now. So I start to think, what are the kinds of things that I would like to do? They almost all revolve around doing something outside – taking a walk, going running, riding my bike, going skateboarding. But living in the city, it’s hard to compete with traffic for a clear road to ride on, and bike paths are too twisty and turny for me to feel like I’ve really riden with any seriousness. And running involves dealing with traffic too, and running by boring buildings not nice scenery. Skateboarding too suffers from the same problem. I can’t hit the streets without feeling like I’m going to be killed. But in the country, I can do those things.

For two, I like the open space. I don’t feel like I have any space to call my own here in the city. Partly that’s because things are so busy. I can’t go sit outside somewhere without a million people around. Sometimes I like that solitude. Partly isn’t because I live with roommates. I love my roommates to death; there are so many times that having them around is such a pleasure. Plus it makes social interaction such a breeze. I don’t really need to make plans very often because they are there to do something with. But it also means that I don’t have complete control over things like the clenliness of my apartment. Some people have lower standards than I do, so things sit out. They will always get cleaned up eventually, but unless I want to do it myself, it won’t happen on my own timetable. Also, it’s hard to set forth with some serious cooking when the kitchen is often busy with other things going on. I can’t take up all the counter space because someone else will want to use it. And I can’t do things like play any music I want because my roommates share this space too. But at my new apartment it will be just me.

So with any hope, I will reset myself to that of old, used to living in a small town, in solitude, taking off to places unknown when bored. It’s been four years, but in those four years I think I’ve gotten enough of a city taste to honestly say I am ready to leave it behind (for a while at least) and try that small town life again. No doubt it will be a challenge to make sure I schedule activities with people to keep me busy, and develop a routine so that coming home isn’t boring in a different way, but I have confidence I can achieve those goals. I’m excited to give it a go, at least.