I grew up on a small hobby farm on the outskirts of St. Cloud, right between city and country. I was 4 years old when we moved there and unlike some of my older siblings who didn’t want to leave their friends to go live on a farm, I was ecstatic! I mean, what kid wouldn’t love growing up on a farm?
However, as I grew from toddler to teenager, I started to become ashamed of where I lived. None of my friends lived in the country, they all lived in neighborhoods. Some of them were even neighbors with each other and got to play in the streets every day, riding their bikes and having water balloon fights at a moments notice. I never had that.
What made it worse is I later discovered there was an assumption that if you lived on a farm, you were dirty. I didn’t know that when I was a kid. I didn’t know that until someone else told me, and it made me more self-conscious than I like to admit.
I started to focus my thoughts on what other people my age had and what I didn’t have. That way of thinking quickly stole my happiness and it made me forget I could have an opinion of my own. I was beginning to believe I was somehow less than the rest of them because I lived in the country. I couldn’t just walk down the street and knock on my friend’s door. I didn’t have a neighborhood full of friends to play with whenever I wanted, and I certainly wasn’t staying up until the streetlights came on to play night games, at least not at the end of a cul de sac.
It took me some time to realize what I did have and how incredibly special it was. Every spring I’m reminded of the beauty of life on a farm. Ours was merely a hobby farm but for a while we had chickens, and in the spring, I could be found sitting in the hay under a heat lamp holding little baby chicks. Otherwise, I would be in the barn, up in the hayloft, where I was sure to find some kittens hissing at me with eyes still closed. On occasion, in another building or shed somewhere, I might even discover one of our dogs had had a litter of puppies.
Not many kids can say they grew up learning how to drive a tractor or a four-wheeler at a young age. My cousin lived only a field away from me and I drove that four-wheeler through the ditch to her house almost anytime I wanted to. I probably went too fast over that grassy bump in the middle of the ditch because I remember catching some air and landing pretty hard, but I never fell off. To this day, I can still feel that adrenaline rush every time I think about it.
The funny thing is, later on in high school when I became brave enough to bring friends over to my house, it was them wanting what I had. When I put them all on a four-wheeler and took them out to the woods, it was the first time they’d ever seen anything like that. And I feel guilty saying it now, but it gave me a sense of pride. I feel guilty because I should have had that pride without their recognition. It should have been something I was happy with before someone else told me it was OK to be happy with it.
The point is, slowly as I grew up, I started to realize I didn’t need someone else’s permission to enjoy the things that made me happy, regardless of whether or not it made sense to others.
Nowadays I live in the city, at the end of a cul de sac. It’s the kind of place I always thought I wanted. And while I do love our little neighborhood and completely enjoy being here, there is a part of me that will always love country living and the memories I created there, dirty kid or not.
