Living Large While Living Small
/Let’s talk about tiny living.
I now live in a small town. Port Aransas: located on a beautiful beach, on an island off the coast of south Texas. Population: just a little over 4,000 full-time residents.
I used to live in not-a-small town. Houston: a metropolis built on oil booms, the birthplace of urban sprawl, chopped-and-screwed music and horrendous traffic. Population: 2.5 million.
One is one of the most culturally diverse, metropolitan cities in Texas, and the other doesn’t require you to wear shoes in all business establishments. Its been an adjustment.
I never imagined myself living in a small town. My mom is from a small town in west Texas and when we’d go visit when we were younger, I’d always ask, “but what do people do here?” The highlight of our trip was to go visit “Prairie Dog Town” and sometimes, I saw more prairie dogs on my trips to Snyder, Texas than I did other humans. My mother is not too shy to point out the irony of where I’ve ended up putting down roots down and raising a family. I’ve told her that at least I see more humans than prairie dogs on a daily basis (we do have quite the gopher population - I won’t give her that ammunition though).
To commemorate living in a small town for full eighteen months, I thought I’d comprise a list of things I’ve learned:
Everyone knows your business. Absolutely everyone. It doesn’t matter if they personally know you or not - they know about you. Sometimes this comes in handy. I had a little scare twelve weeks into my pregnancy and on the way to the hospital (a hefty 30 miles from Port Aransas), I hit something on the highway and my car wasn’t drive-able. I couldn’t reach Eric right away, but once I did, he told me he got no less than three phone calls telling me that my car was broken-down on the highway. Who called him? No one that I had ever met in person, I can tell you that. But there were enough people in town that knew Eric Shanklin’s wife drove this specific kind of car and were thoughtful enough to give him a call out of possible concern. In Houston, I didn’t even know any of my neighbors apart from the few that lived adjacent to me. But here? The whole town knows who you are and what kind of car you drive.
PO Boxes at the Post Office have a hierarchy. Ok, hear me out on this one. The majority of full-time homeowners have a PO Box at the local Post Office in lieu of a mailbox at the street. The higher the PO Box number, the newer you are to town. The lower the number, the more of a “long-time” local you are. Those double and even single-digit box numbers are respected and a source of bragging rights. Eric got his box after high school we’re in the 1600’s, if you’re wondering. It’s pretty decent.
There’s both “Local” and “Out of Town” outgoing mail boxes. Speaking of the Post Office, when I first went to go mail some thank you notes (yes, I still believe in the power of the handwritten thank you note), I was surprised to see two different outgoing mailboxes. We didn’t have “Local” and “Not Local” mailboxes in Houston. Nothing was local in a sprawling city like Houston. The traffic prevented anything from being local.
Your habits (good or bad) aren’t a secret. Coming from a small beach town, most people’s “guilty habits” include sneaking time off work to go to the beach, or being too much of a regular at the bars. Mine? Whataburger. I never wanted or cared for Whataburger before I became pregnant. I thought it was okay, and I ate it on occasion, but I never craved it. But when pregnant? That’s all I wanted - morning, noon and night. And because Whataburger is open 24 hours, I got it morning, noon and night. I was such a regular, that the drive thru attendant and I became friends. As I pulled around to pick up my Jr. cheeseburger day after day, we became acquainted and friendly. And as I had to explain to her that my growing stomach was not only due to the copious amount of french fries, but also a baby, she and I bonded over the fact that her daughter was also pregnant (with twins!) and was also due around the same time. If the drive thru wasn’t too busy, we’d swap stories and I even showed her a sonogram image on my phone (haha!). I haven’t seen her since the pandemic hit, as I now don’t have the luxury of waiting in a long drive thru line with a baby, but I look forward to our inevitable reunion. I’m telling myself that being a regular at Whataburger is a better habit than some alternatives. Don’t change my mind.
Not only am I living in a small town, I’m also living in a small home.
While we build our new house, we were lucky enough to have family that is letting us live in their rental efficiency apartment for a steal (read: free). When Eric suggested that we move in here to save some money while we build our home, I was all for it. We both worked full-time and we’d only be home to eat and sleep, really. The apartment was really nicely remodeled after Harvey, it was clean and we had a kitchenette, full bathroom and utility hookups for a washer/dryer. Yes, at times it got a bit snug and a little inconvenient, but overall we were adjusting nicely to tiny living.
The comfortable adjustment period was short-lived. We moved in in March. We found out we were expecting in June.
The impending arrival of a baby really kick-started our home building. I think Eric was so pleased with how much money we were saving with our new minimalist lifestyle that we would have stayed there forever if it wasn’t for the arrival of our baby boy. I am so thankful for Thomas for many reasons, but this is definitely a major one.
To commemorate living in a 400 square foot efficiency apartment for eighteen months, I thought I’d comprise a list of things I’ve learned:
Never underestimate the power of a modern appliance. Although we have a small electric cooktop, microwave and refrigerator, the apartment didn’t have an oven, or a dishwasher. We bought a small convection toaster to serve as our oven. And when I (jokingly) asked what we were going to do about a dishwasher, Eric (jokingly) told me that he already had one and pointed to me. Guess which joke I found funnier? But it’s okay, because I was laughing in the end when he and his brother had to disassemble and reassemble the half-size stackable washer/dryer unit in order to get it through the doors. Turns out that a 22” washing machine unit won’t fit through 20” pocket doors.
I have too many clothes. They say you really only wear about 20% of your wardrobe. Well, I packed up all of my clothes in Houston and only unpacked a small amount at the apartment (I didn’t think I’d be here long enough to really need many winter clothes - HA). Turns out, I only wear about 20% of my 20%. So in reality, I only regularly wear just a small fraction of my wardrobe. And when I got too pregnant, my daily ensemble just consisted of leggings and an over-sized sweater of some sort. This is the only time in my life that I’ll be a 1%-er.
Cooking doesn’t always have to be fancy. In Houston, most of my dinners consisted of using the majority of my 6-burner gas stove, my full-size convection oven, maybe my air fryer, or crock pot, or pressure cooker. Here? I can’t fit two pots side-by-side on the little electric cooktop at the same time. And my oven only has enough room for about an 8x8 baking sheet. And if sometimes it can take me three hours to make just three things. I’ve gotten a lot less creative in my dinner menus and embraced the frozen food aisle of the grocery store. As long as we’re not eating DiGiornos more than three times a week, I consider it a win.
Babies have a lot of baggage. When we found out we were expecting and knew we’d bring a baby home to our 400 square foot abode, we thought that we could keep the place still somewhat clutter-free. I look back and laugh about a lot of my misconceptions of motherhood, but I laugh the hardest at this. Between his crib and changing table (a two-in-one pack and play setup), diapers, creams, bathtub, bouncers, play mats, jumpers, swings and bottles, we had just one usable path from the front door to the kitchen and bedroom. If you strayed from the path, you faced the consequences of bruised shins and stubbed toes. I share my jewelry and makeup storage with Thomas’s diapers and wipes, my already small closet with his makeshift dresser (a plastic storage container), and my frustrations with his father (“why can’t we build this house any faster!")
The surgery of our stackable washer/dryer
These past eighteen months have been a learning experience for me. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I’ve lived a very privileged life, so going from my perfectly-decorated Houston townhome to a small apartment without the amenities I’m used to will make me appreciate the hard work and spacious luxuries that we’ll have in our new home - especially having a dishwasher again!
And its been an adjustment to go from living in the anonymity of one of the nations largest cities to under the microscope of a small town. But with that came a sense of community and friendship that I’ve never experienced before.
Although our current home (and town) might be very small, I have a happy, healthy baby, a hardworking and loving husband and a roof over my head. And I think that’s living pretty large.
(But also, I’m really ready for a dishwasher. Can you tell I really hate doing the dishes?)
