I’ve been living in Reno for three years now. And in that time I have really enjoyed the lower population density. When I go shopping it’s not crowded. When I drive to work there is very little traffic on my short commute. Looking up, I sure do love the wide open spaces and big sky. I breathe easier up here in the high desert. Nevada has been good for my soul.<\/p>\n
I just spent a few days in Hayward while visiting my dad. I cannot remember being so stressed out. Seems like everywhere I went was stop-and-go on the freeway and I was hitting every stoplight. When I got out of my car it wasn’t any better. <\/p>\n
The people…there are so many people. <\/p>\n
I went to a big-box store to shop for a computer monitor to replace my dad’s broken one. As soon as I pulled into the parking lot I had to fight for a parking spot. I had to wade through throngs of people at the entrance. Inside, I was overwhelmed by the noise and the crowds, and the…whew…whoa…I’m not used to this…<\/p>\n
Sensory overload. I was not enjoying this experience at all. Odd thing…this is life in SoCal, where I lived for 10 years. Perhaps I’ve been gone for so long that I’m not used to it. Whatever. I don’t like it one bit.<\/p>\n
I grabbed a cheap monitor and waited in line. “Sir? Next in line, please. SIR?!”<\/p>\n
Wait, what? Oh. Me. Yeah. I’m next in line. Jeez. Get me out of here.<\/p>\n
How can people live like this? The Bay Area has gotten just as bad as SoCal. SoCal. I haven’t been to SoCal in about 14 years. How bad is it *NOW* I wonder?<\/p>\n
Back in the car in the big box parking lot I paused before putting the key in the ignition. I needed a moment. I had to let my brain decompress. Honk honk…HOOOOOONNNNK!!! Wait, what? Oh…someone is waiting for my parking spot. Oh my golly gooly get me out of here.<\/p>\n
I fight through more stop-and-go in the huge shopping big-box shopping area to the street. More stoplights and cars and loud music. Back on the freeway now. More stop-and-go. Where is this traffic coming from? It was 2pm on a Sunday. It wasn’t commuter traffic.<\/p>\n
Back at my dad’s house. Now I can’t find a parking spot. My dad’s neighborhood as undergone some drastic changes since I left home. All the old folks are gone. All the houses are rentals with 17 people living in each house, and every person has their own car. <\/p>\n
Nowhere to park. This place is a zoo. Where did all this trash come from? Everyone has a dog, and each dog has been barking since I left hours ago. What am I doing here? How can people live like this?<\/p>\n
Overwhelmed, tired, stressed, unhappy. Finally I find a spot miles away from my dad’s house to park. All I want to do is lay down on my old bed in my old bedroom and sleep.<\/p>\n
And once inside my dad’s house that’s exactly what I did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been living in Reno for three years now. And in that time I have really enjoyed the lower population density. When I go shopping it’s not crowded. When I drive to work there is very little traffic on my short commute. Looking up, I sure do love the wide open spaces and big sky. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paF8Q-ht","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1084,"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teebiss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}