The road from suburban Chicago to Southwestern Oklahoma wrapped half way around the world for me. My journey started with my big move into the City at the age of eighteen years. I graduated early and my next leg was several years in Michigan where I got my Masters degree.
After graduating and working for a while, I moved halfway around the world to the island of Saipan where I worked for a great remote company out of Vancouver. After eighteen months of life in a “tropical paradise” I moved back to the Detroit area for a few years.
This adventure known as life took me on a detour to Montgomery, Alabama where I worked for several libraries over the course of four plus years. But life threw me a major curveball, and I essentially ran off with my now husband to Oklahoma.
When I arrived in Oklahoma in 2021, I was excited by the possibilities. At the same time I was also moving to the smallest community I have ever lived, a town of 20,000. While my town is “big” we are surrounded for hours by other smaller towns. I live in what our favorite neighbor refers to as “the biggest city of its size”.
Life in rural Oklahoma has been an adjustment. I have less access to amenities and services. We drove an hour to where I delivered my baby, for example. But I also have the greatest work life balance I have ever had. That baby sometimes joins me at work and my house is less than a mile from my library.
It’s all about balance, right?
Finding Appalachia 
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