After living in the sticks for more than 14 years, I realize what I’ve been missing.

We moved to Wickenburg, a tiny western town on the edge of nowhere back in 1997.

We’d come from a small town in northeastern New Jersey, less than 20 miles from midtown Manhattan. Our NJ town was small and quaint and our neighborhood was nice and quiet. Yet we were always within range of everything New York had to offer.

Wickenburg was different. The town didn’t offer much in the way of shopping or dining opportunities. Because the population varied with the season, some businesses simply closed down for the summer when the snowbirds went home in the spring. We were at least 40 miles from reliable shopping and dining and more than 60 from the heart of a major city (Phoenix). We learned to do just about all our shopping for nonfood items online and found ourselves driving an awful lot. Or simply settling for whatever the local shops and restaurants had to offer.

It didn’t bother me much until all our young friends started moving out of down and our older friends started dying. That, coupled with idiotic local politics, a terrible local economy, and mind-numbingly slow Internet access speeds at our home, I was beginning to lose my mind.

When Mike began working in Phoenix and the real estate market sunk, we bought a little condo near the “Biltmore” area of Phoenix. Nothing special, but certainly quite comfortable. It took a while to get used to living so close to other people — after all, our Wickenburg home sits on 2-1/2 hilly acres, so privacy is not an issue — but the benefits of living in a city soon outweighed the drawbacks.

This point really hit home yesterday.

After being the subject of a video interview via Skype to promote one of my new books — something that would have been impossible in my Wickenburg office — I checked in on Facebook. Two of my friends there had gotten into a discussion about a wine called Amarone, which is made in Italy. They apparently loved this wine and thought I’d like it, too. So I told them I’d hunt down a bottle.

Because I was in Phoenix, this turned out to be very easy. There’s a Total Wine shop less than a mile from our condo. After dinner, we went over there and were soon trying to decide which of the 10 brands of Amarone we should take home. I knew that the wine sources in Wickenburg — the Basha’s and Safeway supermarkets — would not have a single bottle of this rather costly wine. Yet in Phoenix, walking distance from my home, I was faced with 10 different options.

Of course, this isn’t the only occasion that I’ve reaped the benefits of living in a city. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to hop in the car and drive 40 miles to buy a computer cable I needed but couldn’t find in Wickenburg. Here, I’m not only walking distance from Best Buy and Staples, but there’s even an Apple store a short walk away. And I remember the day I went crazy looking for lady fingers to make tiramisu for a party I was going to. I spent three hours and drove more than 100 miles to get those damn cookies. I’m pretty certain that I can find them at the A.J.’s Fine Foods supermarket about 2 miles from here. That’s just a bike ride away.

And don’t get me started on restaurants.

It’s funny that I went for so long without being bothered by the lack of goods and services close to home. I’d talk to friends and family members who had easy access to things and it never really struck me as an inconvenience. Until, of course, I no longer had that inconvenience.

We still go back to Wickenburg, of course. It’s like a weekend home for us. Our house sitter, John, is taking care of things while we’re away. He doesn’t seem to mind the lack of goods and services.

I’m kind of hoping he’ll offer to buy the house from us one of these days. Although I’m not quite ready to let go of it, if the price is right, I might realize that I’m a lot more ready than I thought I was.