It's Just Progress

Like most humans, I love change...as long as it's things that benefit me.  Like most older humans,  I fight, grumble and complain about changes that conflict with my little set and stubborn ways. Progress requires change. Change isn't always so easy to accept when it is rolling over your own toes.

The hubby and I were both more or less raised here in our home town. We went to school, formed long lasting friendships, met and married, raised our children and worked to better our lives here.  When we were young, the town was a nice sized town, big enough to have two high schools and all the basics for a comfortable life.  A prosperous town grows slow and steady and when you are so accustomed to living in it, you mostly notice the things that excite you..."Hey, did you see that we are getting a Big Baboo Seafood Restaurant right over there by the new Walmart?"

It's great to see restaurants, retail stores and entertainment develop.  Of course, more "Stuff" brings more population.  The medical services boom, more folks need more services, banks and churches.
More, more, more of everything.  The spouse and I moved into our rather modest  and older neighborhood about five years ago.  It was located about two miles from the busiest area of town and there was not much but housing in that two miles. In just these short years, there is now barely a slice of land left that isn't covered with the new fancy Gourmet Grocery store, the restaurants and other new businesses, a new elementary school and a new red light, with others soon to come. 

As we were just dawdling along, happy to have a new restaurant to dine out at, the city was booming and exploding and before you know it, the tsunami of progress had flooded over us.  First comes the tax bill that merrily reflects the increasing glut of valuable revenue around us.  Then one day, like yesterday when the hubby and I decided to have a day out, we found ourselves feeling like an alien in a strange land.  Up to our necks in progress and wondering what happened to our pretty and nice old town? 

We had planned to check out the new sprawling retail Village. By check out, I mean we just wanted to drive through the amusement park sized extreme shopping experience and gawk at the shoppers and stores. We would catch  a late lunch.  That was a major decision, even after we decided what kind of food we wanted, we crept through the bumper to bumper traffic, through stop light after stop light. There was a plethora of eating establishments to choose from, if we could just choose and actually reach one and didn't mind a twenty minute wait to be seated. How many people could actually be dying to eat a club sandwich at one time?

To top off our day we would take in a movie. Unbeknownst to us, the movie of our choice was showing in the special theatre.  Twenty five dollars later, we soon found ourselves sitting in cushy seats, looking right up the big star's nostrils on the massive screen and having our hair blown straight out behind us by waves of ear splitting sound. 

OMGoodness, we are living in a big city.  It was so good to crawl our way home,  take off our shoes and have a nice cocktail.  I suppose it's progress and it must be good. I found myself  thinking of a drive in movie, a hot dog from the concession stand and the only honking that we heard to get there was when you waved at your neighbor.