Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Houston vs Memphis

Some of you have asked (a while back... but whatever) how I like living in the Memphis area. I can say with certainty that it is different... with both good and bad aspects. I'm not sure that it'll ever be "home" - but it is where we're hanging our hats these days.

The pace is absolutely slower here - in every sense of the expression. No one is in a hurry to do anything here. I'm used to the fast paced big city - I mean Houston is the 4th largest city in the country - so you drive fast, talk fast, hurry through everything, and juggle 50 things at a time. Here, everyone is really laid back and it can be frustrating when you're trying to get something done. It's the most frustrating when you're trying to get something important completed... like say the 2 hours it took to get my kids their well child visits yesterday.

The technology is a bit behind in a lot of ways too. Which is kind of cool and surreal at the same time. I told a friend recently that it's sort of like stepping back 20 years or so in time. True story. In Houston, I'm thinking they've had the emission filters on the gas pumps for at least 15 years or so... and here - they don't have them. Granted, I've only really gotten gas once or twice... and it's been at the Kroger store near my house... so it might be an isolated incident, but in TX it's a huge deal.

Memphis isn't quick to update things either - meaning that our Sonic stores here have the same signs that they've probably always had. I guess in Houston the vogue thing to do is to always have the latest and greatest... update and upgrade are the words of the day there. Here it's quieter and slower to move to the newer technologies and remodels. It's sort of quaint in a way for staying true to the original - I just think that it's a little surprising to me that it's the big national chains too.

My life here is different than it was in Houston. I mostly worked downtown and had a good hour long commute everyday. Today, I rarely leave the area within a 10-15 minute radius of my house. Seriously, between my house and the freeway is about the extent of my travels. The farthest I've driven since I've been here has been to the church where our MOPS group meets. Which is about 18 miles from the house. I will make that drive every other Wednesday - which is funny to me when I used to drive 25 miles to work one way every single day. It's great though that I have a HUGE Expedition - and I haven't filled it up in a month! True story.

It may be a LOT slower... but I think it's a great place to have these boys. Everyone here is charmed by them... and they interact with these sweet southern voices very well. I think the slower pace will help me be able to keep up with life while taking care of them.

For me the funniest part of this whole deal is that I moved 10 hours north... and I NOW live in the south. HA!

2 comments:

  1. Appreciate the slower pace. My grandma would always make comments about people that would race past her on the highway or something like that, "They're in a hurry to go nowhere." I still adhere to that same thinking today. It's easy to become swept up in the hurried way of life, but boy, when you have a chance to really slow down and take things easy, it's a nice chance of pace. If you think about it, what are we in a rush for anyway? We still have the same 24 hours in a day no matter how much we try to cram into it.

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