Articles & Essays
Home | View all Essays

What the 'good life' means to me now
by Dena Beck

Dena Beck and family

Rural life is not for everyone. And that’s fortunate, because if everyone from the cities started living rural, we wouldn’t be rural anymore! Still, I think there are a lot of people living in cities who just haven’t figured out what they’re missing yet.

There are all kinds of ways to approach rural living, from some pretty wild and remote places to “just past suburbia”. I can’t tell you about them all, but I can tell you what rural life is for me.

After being absent from my hometown, Minden, for 10 years,  I encountered my high school sweetheart, David, at our 10 year class reunion. When we decided to marry, we also decided to move home.

We moved a house onto 11 acres north of Minden – notice I said “moved a house onto” and not “built a house on”. We like to have a project, and restoring a turn of the century house has kept us occupied for years.

David went back to school and received his R.N., BSN through Creighton University’s accelerated R.N. program at the neighboring community of Hastings. He is currently employed at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital working three 12-hour shifts per week. In addition to our house, we have two small children and a Llama herd, and try to be good stewards to the land. This is how David spends his four days off a week.

I am a Business Specialist with the Center for Rural Affairs’ Rural Enterprise Assistance Project (REAP – www.cfra.org/reap) as well as a student in an online Master’s degree program.

My REAP position allows me to have a home office, which I truly love. A Business Specialist for REAP works with microenterprise (five employees or fewer) businesses in Nebraska. There are seven of us across the state that provide technical assistance (training, assistance with a business plan, etc.), make loans for small businesses, and network with other organizations to be able to refer someone to that proverbial “perfect fit” for them to succeed.

Before we were married, both David and I lived (separately) in medium to large cities. For us, it took moving away from our small-town home to appreciate what Nebraskan’s call “the good life”.

Here’s what the “good life” means to me now:

  • Opportunities for higher education that are convenient and affordable;
  • Jobs that allow for good income, low stress and little commuting time (most of the time for me, that means walking down the stairs);
  • Safety for our family including low crime and safe, high-quality schools;
  • A strong sense of community;
  • Close enough to a variety of dining and entertainment opportunities (at this point that means Sesame Street Live and stopping for a Happy Meal on the way home);
  • Having space to live, work, and play.

I also enjoy being near family and regularly seeing people that have known me since childhood. Knowing these people as an adult has been a joyful experience (my classmates that are still living far away are missing out on this).

Whatever you believe about living rural – it’s boring, it’s insular, there’s nothing to do, the people are narrow-minded – I say, challenge your assumptions. You might find a life that’s really worth living.

What have you got to lose…stress, long commutes, high crime…?

Dena Beck lives with her children, husband and Llamas near Minden, NE.

writers wantedTo learn more about how you can be a writer for Nebraska Rural Living, and have your essays posted on this site, visit our 'Writers Wanted' page.

topback to top | more Articles & Essays