In college I realized I didn’t quite love it. While I stayed in the state for school, friends and family were traveling to places and falling in love. I didn’t get it. I had never gotten that feeling from a place. That made me sad, but when I realized I might want to leave my beloved Mitten with its family and familiarity, I was scared.
After college I began working at outdoor education camps. These jobs took me to amazing, wild places in North Carolina, New York, California. I greatly enjoyed every place I lived, but never had that feeling. I began to relax, thinking maybe I did belong in the Midwest with its humid, mosquito-infested summers and frigid, snowy winters.
My partner and I decided to “settle down” in Wisconsin. I thought it was what I wanted: to be near family, stay in one spot for more than a year, finally put down some roots. However, after two years of feeling bored, restless, and out of place we finally began looking for opportunities elsewhere. We decided to move to Oregon to take classes, and pursue something that both of us had been dreaming about for a long time.
When we got off the plane to apartment-hunt in our soon-to-be new town, the feeling hit me like a ton of bricks. Beautiful, soul-filling bricks. I was falling in love. From that moment I could hardly wait until the move, but as I drove further and further west I began to feel the 2500 miles between me and my family.
Now I am here. Books are in the bookcases, clothes are in the closet, the dog is being snuggly on the bed. This is already shaping up to be one of the best times of my life, but it’s also sad. I’m afraid of falling in love — more afraid than I have ever been of falling in love with a person.
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What if I really love it and I don’t want to leave? How will I deal with only seeing my parents a couple of times a year and my extended family even less? If my partner and I have kids here, will they ever really get to know their grandparents?
I’m also afraid of falling in love with Oregon and then still choosing to leave. I may move closer to my family, but will I forever miss this place and wish I were here?
I don’t really know what happens, next. While there will always be a special place in my heart and mind for the Midwest, this new home is every place I’ve ever felt comfortable — every punk house, awesome job, childhood memory, magical forest, all rolled into one and it feels really good. I just know I am going to enjoy it as thoroughly as I can while I am here.
I get this, totally. I am from Western Canada (Vancouver Island), and then moved to Ottawa for university when I was 18. Ottawa is the most wonderful city I have discovered, despite it’s insanely cold winters and Ontario’s humidity that I have never experienced before. I ended up getting married and having 3 kids out here after school, and half of my children’s family are on the other side of the country.
We tried, just before my second child was born, to move back. We packed up everything, blew our savings on moving expenses, and moved to be closer to my family. It sucked. We are not eh closest of families to begin with, and even though I was a half-hour drive away instead of a 6-hour flight, we never saw each other. House prices and the job market worked against us until we were broke and our credit cards were maxed out. It was depressing, to say the least. All the places where I grew up that I wanted to show my husband kind of lost their appeal in the overwhelming feeling that my home had betrayed me, that we couldn’t make a life here.
We ended up moving back to Ontario, 10 months later. Even more in debt, it took us 6 months of living with my in-laws before we were back on our feet. Now, we own a house, we both have decent jobs, life is good – a life we would never have been able to afford back home. It absolutely sucks that my kids don’t know my family, and we are using our vacation this year to take them back for a family wedding this summer. It will be the first time most of my family has met my youngest daughter, and she is nearing 2 years old.
For us, though, Ontario has given us opportunities that BC never could, just with the economy, jobs, housing prices, etc, and my kids come first. We are making our own memories here, and hopefully someday more of my family can be a part of that.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I’m glad you figured out where you need to be. I’m hoping we figure that out, eventually, heh.
Oh southern coastal BC. Why must you hate us so with your ‘lack of jobs’ and ‘insane housing costs’? I do feel like that is my ‘love’, and living in Alberta kills me… but perhaps if I tried to move back there I would be similarly disillusioned? For the time being I will cling to that being the case, and just try to get back for family vacations. PNE anyone? Or Sea Cavalcade?!
But goodness do I miss the ocean…
It’s funny to me to read your comment because the exact opposite thing has happened to us. We took a huge risk, left Ontario for the Island, loved it, had a child there, then mistakenly moved back to Ontario and stayed here and it’s been awful.
In some ways, I think falling in love with a place is more dangerous than loving a person. A person can come visit you if you leave; a place can’t. People can change, but they usually don’t change as much and as quickly as a place does. A place depends on a lot more people than a person does.
I fell in love with a place and left it five years ago. I still dream about it and long to go back. But to go back would probably mean hurting my husband, and possibly myself. I totally understand your fear.
Well said. Even though I was never “in love” with a place I’ve lived previously I sometimes miss places I’ve been. However, I know that most of those places are not the same as when I left- most of the people I knew have scattered to other places and the feeling would just be different.
I completely understand this feeling. I live in Appalachia, and folks here tend to have very deep roots in the place. I have a lot of friends who can’t fathom leaving or not returning despite the economic hardships and lack of opportunities on just about every front. So when I talk about wanting to get out, I feel like I’m betraying them. But, I don’t love it, and I feel stifled by the culture (I do respect that culture though and the people who feel strongly enough about it to stay), and I really want to “fall in love” with my own place — even if that means feeling like a traitor to my own.
I totally get this! I stayed in Michigan for college and felt like I was never really going to leave…I felt very disturbed when I finally did leave and I liked other places! I was comforted knowing that I always wanted to go back, but now that’s changed. Still, though, I have a gross amount of Midwestern pride even though I’ve left, hehe. I think we carry our homes with us. Just because we leave doesn’t mean we don’t take the lessons and values we’ve learned there with us. You are not a traitor! 🙂
I feel ya. Hard. I am a midwestern girl, and my husband and I currently live in Michigan. There are other places I would have picked to live, if falling in love with a place was my number one criteria. And when I was single and still looking for a job, it was. I spent seven years in Salt Lake City, and even though I liked it, I never “loved” it. Having been gone for a few months, I’m not homesick for the city that transformed me from post-college kid to real adult person. We decided to move because I did get sick of always being a plane ride away from my family, missing holidays and events because I couldn’t afford a plane ticket. Hell, I even missed both my maternal grandparent’s funerals because it just was not possible for me to get there in time. So when we decided to move from the city we were just kind of OK with, being closer to family was my number one priority, followed closely by a job in my field that paid more. So Michigan fit that bill. I do like it here, and I don’t think we’ll ever hate it, but it does remain to be seen if this is LOVE. In an ideal world, the city you love would also house the people you love, and it’s a really tough when that’s not the case at all.
Yeah, your experience being away is exactly the kind of thing I’m afraid of. For me, the Midwest will always have a strong pull on me. I wonder if this happens to a lot of people with the place they grew up?
That’s awesome that you found a good job! I actually left initially because I couldn’t find one in Michigan. Even now in my line of work, all the better jobs are elsewhere.
I totally 100% understand. I moved 2800 km from my home in Saskatchewan because I really just didn’t love it. Spent 5 years in Toronto getting my degree…and fell 100% in love. The problem was that there were no jobs in Toronto in my field (or at least ones that would pay well enough for us to live there), and my husband would have to go through recertification to work there. It just wasn’t worth it. So we moved back to the prairies.
I admit I still miss Toronto. I miss the culture, the people, even the public transit. I find myself stifled in the prairies in a lot of ways. But, I’ve also been able to find a lot of amazing opportunities here. Ones that I wouldn’t have had had I stayed in Ontario.
I have no idea where the next 5 years will take me. If I will be here, or somewhere else. But at least I can always hop on a plane and go visit my beloved Toronto.
Ps. I would say fall in love anyway. You may miss it if you move, but I promise you that you won’t regret ever loving that place.
To perhaps in part reassure you you just described my family’s reality and it has been awesome. My parents moved cross country multiple times, we grew up far far away from our grandparents and extended family, but I feel very close to my grandparents, I have wonderful memories of
Thank you! That’s good to know that it works out well for some people. 🙂
Despite not having parents in the military, I moved a lot as a kid, so I never had roots to feel homesick for. Home was wherever my parents were parked – it didn’t matter the place, as long as Mom and Dad were there, it was Home.
Currently, we’re all in Florida, and I hate it. My fiance loves this place, but I’m fed up with the Eternal Summer, so I’ve traveled a bit in my adulthood to feel out places that my parents haven’t been.
I fell in love with Boston. It was too big for my ex-husband to like, and my fiance hates the “Rat Race” feeling he gets in New England, but I still spent the last 15 years trying to find ways to move there. None worked out, because I was either married or engaged to somebody who doesn’t want to move there, or I was badly unemployed and can barely afford food.
I’ve given up on being able to live in the place I love. I write novels about it. Every few years I visit my best friend who lives there. I’ll have to wait until I’m either divorced again (hope not) or my fiance to pass on from old age (depressing).
Maybe my next lifetime.
In the meanwhile, I live wherever is practical, though I don’t love it.
I’m sorry that you can’t be in the place that you love, but hopefully you can find small things you love about the place you are! I know I’ve always tried to do that when I was in less-than-awesome places and it definitely helps.
I understand this totally. Places can be so powerful. Just like in a new relationship, take the time now to love and explore. You’ll find some warts, I’m sure, and you’ll also figure out how to make your connection to this new place and to your family balance out. And who knows – this may be the beginning of a whole series of place-loves in your life.
My professional life revolves around the connection to and importance of place, and even I was floored by my first deep place-based heartbreak. I had no idea what I was getting into when I traveled north for a three month internship in the Adirondacks. I fell, hard. Leaving felt like a blend between a breakup and reverse culture shock. I muddled through and was eventually fine, even though going back for visits made me sad. I’d arrive and already be thinking about having to leave, and not knowing when I’d be able to return. But I’d be lying if I said that place-love wasn’t a huge part of deciding to apply to a job that was 2 hours away from it instead of 18 hours. Even if I hadn’t been able to move closer, would I have regretted my place love affair? Never.
Thank you for your comment! I actually spent some time in upstate NY and really enjoyed it (the place, not necessarily the job I had, heh). Actually, if things feel too far away here my partner and I talk about giving it a go in NY. It’s not super close to my parents, but being a day or two’s drive away is better than 2500 miles. I really liked the particular brand of small town culture I experienced in NY. Very different from Midwestern small town culture!
I feel you on this. It’s scary. And as someone living pretty far away from both my family AND both of the places I have fallen in love with like that, I can tell you that it’s hard. But you have to let it happen, I think. Even if you fall in love with Oregon and end up leaving it, place love shapes who you are just like loving a person does. Even if it does not last.
Your studies sound awesome. I hope you find lots of happiness in your new home.
Thank you! I fully intend on getting the most out of my time here, whether it’s short-lived or long-term. 🙂 I agree with you- all the places I’ve been have shaped me somehow.
I can completely relate to this post. I feel like this is the conversation that is always happening in my life. Everyone in my family lives in different states, and “the moving talk” takes places regularly between myself and my mom, my sister, my partner, my dad, my best friends… we all can’t stop trying to figure out how to find the best of both worlds. How do we find a place that we all “love” and can also find employment? Are we doomed to forever live thousands of miles apart? It’s harder still because we’re all so different. My dad lives in Texas and that fits his personality to a T. My aunt is in Boston, my mom South Carolina, etc. How can one place possibly suit such different tastes? This question exhausts me, but I feel heart broken about the distance and the idea of raising my kids without these people in their lives, so I keep struggling with it. If someone finds an answer please do tell! 😉
For 98% of my life, most of my extended family has been spread across different states. We’ve definitely never all been in one place, even though there have sometimes been small clusters. There are drawbacks, I suppose. But I definitely think traveling to visit family in different places as a child widened my world. I remember learning how things can be both different and the same, exploring new places, and (perhaps most importantly) taking note of how my parents picked up on landmarks and learned to navigate in unfamiliar cities. I’m still impressed by my father’s ability to get around in a place he’s only been once or twice before!
That’s awesome, I’ve never thought of this before. It’s a really great benefit, though. I hardly traveled outside Michigan at all until I graduated college. I had very little experience of the world outside of my state. No matter what, my kids will get to visit different places because so many people I love are scattered all over. Thank you for that thought!
When I was a kid I picked out a star and pretended it was a planet. I would look up at it and pretend that it was my own place where everyone I loved lived. I even drew up a map of it and labelled where everyone’s houses were. At the time the farthest my loved ones lived from me was probably a six hour drive, but now I sometimes still think about my special planet so it can include all the people I’ve known from all different places. 🙂
I get this.
I was a New Englander all my life; born and raised in Connecticut. Five years ago I met the love of my life and uprooted myself to the Midwest to persue a new life. We’re married now and expecting our first child, and have owned our home for five years.
It’s hard separating yourself from where you grew up, assuming you have family and find memories there. I miss my family; we see each other for a week about three times a year. I miss the closeness of everything in the northeast and the different scenery and scenes available within a short two hour drive.
But I won’t move back. The cost of living is far too high. The overwhelming stress of day to day life in the rat race there just sucks. My parents (whom I’m closest to in my family) are close to retirement and weighing their options on where to call home.
My new dilemma: my husband and I honeymooned in Denver, Colorado back in September. We LOVED it. It felt like home. Now, with a house, a family starting and good friends I’ve made since moving to Iowa, plus all of my husband’s family here, we’re stuck with the difficult decision of whether or not to uproot again and start over in our beloved Colorado.
Sigh; decisions.
Heh, I’m already trying to convince my parents to move when they retire. I’ll have to really make sure I’m where I want to be, though, because if they end up actually doing it and then I want to leave I’ll be in the same situation all over again!
Part of the reason I’m afraid of settling here for a while, too, is because of having to leave friends. Moving around so much the last few years, I was constantly leaving people behind and it hurt so much every time. I think part of my dilemma is the overwhelming desire to just BE somewhere, to really set down roots. I know I always have the option of moving somewhere else if the distance from family is just too much, but I also hate the idea of being here for five years, building that community, then having to start all over, again.
I was a military brat, and never developed deep roots, but my husband was born and raised in a tiny Pennsylvania town, and his entire family is still within a few hours’ drive, and my family is almost all on the East Coast. We’re in Oregon, and we love it too. It feels like the home I’ve never had, and we’re putting down roots here. I find myself wondering what it will be like to just *stay* in a place, instead of moving on in two or five or ten years, to have a child who can say she was born and raised in Portland, to be able to talk about what a place used to look like twenty years ago. I miss my family, and I’m sad that my daughter won’t be able to see her grandparents more than once a year at most, but there’s always Skype.
For us, though, it’s not as simple as family vs. city – here, our right to be a family is acknowledged and protected, and where our families live, it isn’t.
I’m so happy you’ve found your place!
I like the idea, too, of my future kids having a real sense of roots, but part of me is sad that it won’t be in the Midwest. I really feel like it’s harder to love the Midwest when you haven’t grown up there, so I’m curious about what my kids’ relationship to it will be.
Here’s the issue though. I AM that child, who was raised in Portland and can tell you about what the old OMSI used to be like and how the Hawthorne District used to be full of legitimate hippies. I would LOVE to go back to Portland, but I’m being priced out by everyone else moving there. Honestly, the people moving in are killing what used to be Portland. It’s becoming a shiny, commercialized, Portlandia version of itself, and I wish to god that people would just stop coming. Not just so that I could afford to live there near my family, but so it would STAY that city I grew up in.
It’s a difficult place to be in and I hope you figure out what is right for you! I moved away from my family and my home in Minneapolis 11 years ago to Kentucky to be with my then-fiance. I have a lot of friends here, we own a house, and enjoy a pretty low cost of living, but I am just not in love with being here and that sucks. I always dream of moving back to Minnesota but realistically I don’t know if it would work. My hubby can’t handle the cold (even though I swore to him that you really do get used to it) and we don’t have friends there (most of mine moved away or dropped off the face of the earth after I left. I’m confident we’d make new friends, my hubby is not). As if the whole situation wasn’t difficult enough we had a child and now if we moved we’d be taking his parents only grandchild 15 hours away from them. Not to mention my daughter would be heartbroken if we took her from her BFF, her grandpa. I probably should just get over it and just dive into being a Kentuckian whole heartedly but in my soul I am northern girl and I don’t think that will ever change.
I have the problem that my man and I are in love with a place (OBX), but for now, stuck in Baltimore, which we most definitely do not love. It makes me sick to my stomach thinking I can’t even get there for a vacation this year, and that it’s been 2 years! It’s totally like being lovesick for a person! The logistics of moving, the reality that there’s not a heck of a lot of work there other than tourism, medical issues, and family are keeping us here for now. Hoping that even though we’re nearing 40, we will be able to make a big move like that work in the next 3 or so years. Good luck to you! Life is short, do what you need to for you to be happy!
Duuuude I so feel you. I left Michigan to go to college in Portland, and then came back a few years after I graduated precisely because of the so-far-from-family, hate-air-travel, hate-holiday-travel, etc stuff. We found a city here that we like a lot, but I don’t think we’ll stay here forever- my problem is that I fall in love with places CONSTANTLY. England, Oregon, the entire Southwest, Bozeman, rural northern Michigan… it’s so hard to pick, and to know where you should be. I say if you’re loving it for now, stay for as long as you love it. If the stress of being so far away eventually outweighs the love, you’ll know it’s time to go. And keep exploring, you’ll never know when you’ll fall in love with another place, and maybe it’ll be closer 🙂 (Of course, locational polyamory kind of sucks… no matter where I am, I’m homesick for somewhere else. Rar.)
I fell in love with Oregon and moved 1000 miles from my family to be here… and then serendipitously my brother fell in love with a woman who loved Oregon and they moved here, and now my parents are actually moving here this summer which I NEVER thought in a million years would happen.
I’m kid who grew up a 16 hour drive away from pretty much all of my family (my parents both come from the same small town, but moved elsewhere for better opportunities for us kids). I really don’t feel like I missed out on too much, since my parents always tried to take us up there for a week every summer and every other Christmas. I still got to have sleepovers at grandparents’ houses and with my cousins and celebrate large family events. While I never ended up with any of those best-friend cousins my friends always talked about, my older sisters did, and are still in regular contact with them, so its more my personality than the distance. And with tech nowadays, theres lots of ways to be places where you can’t physically be.
Awesome! Thanks for this perspective. I grew up being really close with some of my cousins and seeing extended family quite a lot. It’s nice to know that a sense of closeness can still be achieved even when you’re farther away. 🙂
We grew up REALLY far away from our family. My parents moved from England to New Zealand prior to having kids, and we grew up in the days before Skype and e-mail! Sure, we weren’t particularly close to our extended family (my grandparents have all passed now), but we made new family. My godparents and family friends became our close family, and we went back to England a couple of times as kids (as well as my Nana and my aunt and uncle coming out a couple of times each). I didn’t feel as if we were missing out at all, our relationship with our family just was what it was.
I do struggle with this too though. My immediate family was far flung around the world once we left school, and in the last few years, we’ve all moved to within a 2.5hr drive of each other. My older brothers have kids now, and I’ve loved being able to attend family events, babysit my nieces and nephews… But I’m not happy here. Husband and I want to move to the other end of the country to a city we love, but I know this will mean less of a relationship with my family than I have now. It’s hard, but for me, being in a place I love is so worth it for me. It’s my sanity. My family will still be there, no matter where I am.
Another new Northwesterner! My husband and I moved from Southern California to Washington state and I have been cautiously, tentatively, ever-so-slowly allowing myself to fall in love. The problem was at first that it was a whirlwind romance- new, exciting, different. And then the Missing set in. I’m not homesick- I’m peoplesick. I miss my family and my friend-family. I felt like adoring the trees and the rain and the way-friendlier people on the streets was betraying the people I miss. But in the end, it’s the same old song you sing with kindergarten kids: make new friends, but keep the old. It’s okay to love what you had before and miss it, but it’s also okay to find new things to love. My best friend likes to say that love is not a finite resource, and damn, if I don’t have a hard time remembering that.
And now I have that song stuck in my head. Best of luck to you in your new place. I hope that your Oregonian romance proceeds in the best possible way for you.
This happened to me. We moved to Oregon, from Florida, for my husband to go to grad school. We are head over heels in love with Oregon but it is very hard with our families growing (the past 2 years saw the birth of our daughter, and two nieces) being so far away. This past week my sister was very sick (in the ICU) and it was miserable being so far away during a time of crisis. I never understood State pride or why people have bumper stickers with clever sayings about their home State until I moved to Oregon. We fit here. It’s exactly where I want my daughter to grow up but the grant my husband is working under (he’s graduated from grad school) expires in September and I suspect we’ll be headed elsewhere following a new job or to crash with my parents until we find work elsewhere. We’ve lived here for almost 7 years and it feels more like home to me then the small town in Florida where my father’s family has lived for 8 generations.
Have you discussed these concerns with your parents? I did the opposite move, going from the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest for my husbands graduate school and then work. When I discussed not wanting to have kids especially so far away from my parents with my mother she responded “Oh, I would be happy to move to wherever you are, if and when that happens.” It’s nice to know that is an option.
Just to offer my story… My husband and I very happily moved far away from our small hometown. Then my mom fell and broke her hip, and it made me physically sick not to be there for her. My husband and I now live again in our hometown, and I am glad every day. It’s not the most beautiful or varied place, but I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty and the variety that is here. I don’t have the prestigious big-city job that I could have, but I do have its quieter, small-town equivalent and enough money to live comfortably. And we are here for our families, if and when they need us. I’ve lived in and traveled to a number of places I’ve loved, but I have never loved a place more than them.
On a micro level, this is exactly how I feel about apartments. Moving can really blow even within the same zip code. On a macro level, I feel like I have a “one that got away” part of the country that has always been like home my whole life, though I’ve never managed to live there. Maybe I’ll retire there from this other part of the world
I love…
I completely can relate. I am originally from Southern California. Though, at 18, I HATED living at home (I don’t fit in with my immediate family as well as I’d like); so when I got accepted to college in Colorado, I jumped at the chance! I loved college. I met my future husband, and made some friends that I was closer to than I had ever been. I decided I didn’t want to finish at college 1, and only looked at colleges nearby because I didn’t want to leave my then-boyfriend. So I went to another college. Decided I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I was soooooo broke. Luckily, then-boyfriend’s mom said I could live in the house then-bf was living in (she was landlord) for free. I grew closer to my friends, closer than almost anyone in Cali. One of my best friends moved from SoCal to NorCal. I got engaged. My then-fiance landed a great job in Colorado, near our friends. We moved across town. We got married. I grew closer to our friends. Our rent got increased by 17%, so we ended up buying a townhouse.
I have completely fallen in love with my house, and we haven’t even updated that much of it (it needs to be brought from the 80’s to the 10’s, and it desperately needs some TLC since it was a rental). I hate that I’ve fallen in love with Colorado and my house and my friends. My dad’s parents and I are super close, and now they’ve gotten to the point where they can’t travel easily anymore, and they’re in SoCal. One of the few friends I had left in my hometown just moved to Reno. I’m getting closer to my family, but very slowly. I miss the rain in the winter, and the not-super-cold winters. I miss the mild springs and falls, though I don’t miss the sweltering summers.
Part of me desperately wants to move back to SoCal. My mom and dad would be fantastic grandparents. We’re so close to hubby’s family, but I can’t stand most of them and would be incredibly apprehensive leaving my children alone with them. I only get to visit my family for two weeks a year (one week every six months). It’s really difficult. I realized I have less than a year’s worth of visiting with my precious grandparents if we continue to live this far away, and that crushes me.
But, if we moved, I would lose most of my friends. I have a horrendous time making friends. I hate to admit it, but I may never end up back in Cali. And, you know what, I think I might be okay with it. My friends are amazing, and I love our house and lifestyle.
It’s a daily compromise, but my heart is here now too, and if I ever move I know I’ll miss Colorado.
I just wanted to chime in with some other people, that living far away from extended family doesn’t mean you’ll be distant from them. My dad was (is, but they’re divorced) from the Midwest, and he traveled internationally and met my mom. They moved to California when I was little and I’ve lived here most of my life.
With that said, I feel very close to where both sets of families live. I really really like that I grew up visiting such diverse places. My dad’s family lives in a very rural area, and my mom’s in a developing country.
Also, while I don’t have best friend relationships with my cousins, I keep up with them online, and whenever I visit, we pretty quickly fall back into friendships.
Lastly, where I live, there are lots of first or second generation families, and this type of scattered family is really common. I think it’s different in the Midwest, where people are less mobile. But living far from family is totally okay
I am on the cusp of this right now. My husband and I are moving from Wisconsin to Alaska. Like, seriously, right now. We’re packing things up and the hubs is hitting the road on Thursday. My parents are 2 hours away right now, and will be 3400 miles away once we’ve moved.
How am I going to take it? Am I going to be able to let the beauty of the land and my love for my husband take over? Or am I going to be 4-years-old and homesick? Only time will tell…