Life in Nashville From a Small Town Perspective

When you grow up in a small town, all that seems to be talked about is the day that you will leave that small town. You sit around a table, with the same people you have known all your life and chat about all your goals and the things you plan on doing once you leave. However, if there is one thing that you can take away from living in a town like I did. You will find that talk is cheap.

My hometown, set in western Ohio, held just under six thousand people in it. To say that I do not have a love for that town would make me a liar. There is something special about growing up in a place like that. You have the feeling that you know exactly what you are in for. The pace is slow, the same can be said about a few of the people living there as well, and there is always a layer of calmness that rests over the town as a whole. People do not enjoy change, they prefer everyday to play out exactly like the day before. While anyone coming from a larger city may find this lifestyle to be a tedious and boring one, it takes someone that has lived in that culture to see the subtle beauty that comes with it.

That being said, what I have come to find is that these little things that show the beauty of a hometown like mine are the same things that can make it a nightmare to live there. A certain mindset begins to take over, and you end up getting so comfortable with the things that you have always known, that you ask yourself what the purpose in changing anything is. The goals and dreams that you talked about throughout your high school career, end up becoming distant memories. That is the reality that I faced.

When you spend your time in high school, you get used to being told what you are suppose to do with the life that is right in front of you. You know what you have to do to walk away successfully with a diploma in your hand. What I was not prepared for, is what came after that. I had to choose what to do with my life. For twelve years, I was told what to do, and while thoughts about life after high school came up frequently, I never anticipated the challenge that it would be to make a decision for myself. This is the part that I had to choose, to go against the grain that is my hometown. The problem was, I did not know how to. I watched as those around me let the current take them, while their hope of one day venturing out into the world, watched them float away. I did not know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I could not let myself fall into the current.

I graduated high school in the spring of 2015. That summer, June to be exact, through a series of fortunate events, I was at the right place at the right time and met the right person. Volunteering to work at a merchandise booth, for a music festival at a local amusement park, I came in contact with the person that would give me the opportunity to go on an adventure. I never expected to enjoy selling t-shirts and cds as much as I did, as well as interacting with hundreds of different people. The girl running the booth we volunteered for, is someone that has made an incredible imact on my life today, and is someone I consider to be a very good friend. By the end of our shift working at the booth, I had a strong desire to find out how I could get involved with this line of work. I went back to the booth and asked what I needed to do to be able to do this very thing even more. Right there on the spot, I was asked if I was free that fall to go on tour selling merchandise. Two months later, I packed up my things and drove down to Nashville, Tennessee.

The process that goes with moving to a new city is one of the most interesting and terrifying tasks that I have faced. I was fortunate enough to have family member living in Nashville who opened her doors to me, saving me from the new and even more terrifying process of hunting for an apartment.

Going from a town with six thousand people, to a city of over a million can, at times, be incredibly overwhelming for a 19 year old high school graduate. Regardless, I wanted to take in as much of the city, and the culture that comes with it, as I could. The first thing that I noticed about this new home is how unbelievably over populated it is, and how I had no idea what serious traffic actually looked like. Living in Franklin, I learned, rather quickly, how to determine what time is a good time to go driving and when it is best to stay in doors.

What I love about this city is how much 0f a creative culture it is. Being in a position of seeing everything from the outside in, I saw that this desire for people to express themselves creatively comes in many different forms, ranging from the way that people simply experience drinking coffee, in which Nashville has a plethora of coffee shops, or in the way that a person has a desire for the world to hear their story through music. What I have found is that, while there are a large portion of people here for similar goals, their story of how they ended up here, and their passion for why they are here, is diverse and unique to each individual. This city is rich with culture and history that so many who move here are desperate to be apart of, which, if you are not careful, can end up bringing out the worst in you.

The love of wealth and fame can be the thing that destroys every relationship you have. It has the capability to burn every bridge you have, and soil your reputation in this life. And it is those two things that so many seek when they come to Nashville. One of the first things I was told about the community here is that, it is not about what you know but who you know. If this person knows that you worked with that person, then they are more than likely already going to trust your skills. Some of the first people that I met here were musicians, and when I told them what I moved here for their first reaction was to think of who they knew that was in my same line of work. (I was lucky enough to have met people that were actually willing to talk about people they had worked with, due to the fact that they were kind, and I did not really pose any form of threat to them.) Even coming here just to be in the merchandise business, I was warned not to tell people what exact company I worked for, what specific bands I was going to be out on the road with, or really even talk about, in detail, what I actually do, specifically to people hunting for my same position. It dawned on me that I was going to have to keep my guard up a lot more than I was used to.

When I moved here a friend of mine, who already lived here, said something that stuck with me. She said that while there is so much culture and so many people here with the same passions and desires, there can be, depending on who or what you are dealing with, a real lack of community here. It was hard for me to grasp that concept at first. Coming from small town western Ohio, where all you need to do to understand the feeling of the community there is to go to a Friday night high school football game, this lack of community, where so many shared passions live, did not resonate with me.

After thinking about why this is, I came to the conclusion that it is all centered around what exactly is at stake for a person. When you live in a small town, you rarely, if ever, have to worry about what you are telling a person, whether it be a co-worker, a friend, or a family memeber. You know that the person on the recieving end of your conversation, most of the time, genuinely wants to know what is going on in your life. You do not have a reason to keep your guard up, because there is not anything at stake for you telling someone where you are at in life, or what project you may be working on. This, however, is not always the case when it comes to living in music city. When you know that the person standing next to you, is here for the exact same reason, you are suddenly on edge. You can begin to question what their motive is, or if they have a secret agenda, because everything is now at stake for you. The lack of community now becomes clear, why would there be community when you cannot tell if the person that invited you out to coffee is there with an agenda or not.

That being said, this form of dog eat dog atmosphere is not what defines the city of Nashville. When you find community here, and it is here, you find that you have stumbled upon something truly beautiful. The person that you see to your left and right is no longer just your co-worker, or your competition for that matter, they are family. That is what I seemed to have stumbled upon here, a family that not only loves you, but wants to see you excel in your life and career.

My favorite part about my job, managing a booth where we train volunteers to sell t-shirts and cds, is the fellowship that I have with the people around me. It is a job where I can go out on the road with a group of people, that I just met, spend four straight days on a bus, doing shows with them, and come back home feeling like I have known them for years. There is something special that happens when you live on a bus with a group of people. You end up walking away feeling closer to those people that you just spent four days straight with, than the people you spent four years with during your high school career. The best part about it is, you end up going back out with that same group the next weekend.

In the short time that I have been here, I have been given the opportunity to see more of the country than most would see in their entire lifetime.

What I have been given here is the ability to see hundreds of different cultures and communities around the country. I am fortunate enough to be able to do all of this with the incredible community, and family that I have here in Nashville, Tennessee.

In an overwhelming city, filled with so many unique, diverse and creative people, I have found a community to call home.

There is a unique aspect to this city that I have never seen before. It is a place that is filled with creatives from all across the country, coming together to pursue greatness. The thing that makes Nashville special is that a 19 year old high school graduate from western Ohio, has the ability to be apart of that very community.