I was born in the Midwest. I initially went to a college nearby, a little more than an hour from the town I was born in. I later transferred to a college in a nearby state (I’ll write about that whole affair later). It was an 8 hour drive from the college to my parents’ house and I didn’t take it very often, only on major holidays.
Despite being 8 hours away, I did not feel safe. I thought people could just come to the town I was living in with no advanced warning. I lived in that town for 1 1/2 years. I then moved to the east coast. Around the same time, my parents were moving to the west coast. 2800 miles later, there was finally enough space between us for me to feel like people couldn’t just “drop in.”
When I moved to the east coast area, I rented a post office box in the small town I lived in. There were a couple of reasons for this, one being I didn’t want my family to know where I live and another one which I will talk about later. At any rate, my family did not know my actual address, though they had my phone number.
That came to a shocking halt when my sister was able to find my address online. That scared the crap out of me and I immediately began to wonder if “people” would start to show up at my door. I was rather paranoid at the time, but it was for proper reasons. More to follow on that.
Anyway, once I found out that I had no way of hiding due to the internet, my feeling of insecurity just exploded. Living in a small town with a volunteer fire department and a small police force, did not enhance my feeling safe. It didn’t help that the volunteer fire department were called the cellar savers. That certainly didn’t help me feel safe, nor did the fact that I lived in a small town where there is no privacy since people know everyone’s business. I guess I felt like if I ever needed any emergency services that help would be wanting, though in reality that may or may not be true. What’s important was that I didn’t feel safe with the emergency services in the town should I need them.
More on this subject to follow.