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A little background: I grew up in upstate New York. I currently live with my family in Virginia, but my parents, sister and extended family (and it's a BIG extended family) still live entirely in the Northeast. I love where we live in Virginia, but, in some ways, I really want to move back up north to be closer to my family. Right now we see my parents and sister twice a year and everyone else once in the summer. My kids barely know their cousins. I realize there's a little bit of "The grass is always greener..." thing going on, but still...
Anybody else torn between living in a great location and living where (in many ways) your heart is?
I miss my family, and I don't even like where I live. Growing up in rainy Oregon, I dreamed of the day I would finally move to my favourite vacation spot, that being Southern California. However, since I moved here in 2006 at the age of 14, things have been miserable. Although I have made more friends since I've moved here, I just don't like the general vibe of the place. People seem shallow and while they may appear friendly at first, you find this friendliness to feel fake, especially coming from someone who used to live in Texas.
And I got tired of the constant sun after a year. Seriously, I want my rain and clouds. Also this past year the summer was way too hot and too long (it didn't cool down until November), and I actually became nauseous because of the heat and sun. I can't help it, I guess I'm built for grey weather.
A little background: I grew up in upstate New York. I currently live with my family in Virginia, but my parents, sister and extended family (and it's a BIG extended family) still live entirely in the Northeast. I love where we live in Virginia, but, in some ways, I really want to move back up north to be closer to my family. Right now we see my parents and sister twice a year and everyone else once in the summer. My kids barely know their cousins. I realize there's a little bit of "The grass is always greener..." thing going on, but still...
Anybody else torn between living in a great location and living where (in many ways) your heart is?
The way I look at it you only have one family so you might as well enjoy them while you can. I personally don't care for the region of the country I currently live (I prefer the coasts), but its near family and I get to see them once per month so that makes me happy. I've fought the battle of being torn between family and where I want to live, and still fight that battle. I lived in Charlotte for three years and got to see them once per year. I moved to Oklahoma, which I don't enjoy near as much, but have a much better job and am near family, plus this feels like home compared to Charlotte which never felt like I belonged.
When my dad retired, he could have moved to Georgia or Arkansas and he chose Arkansas. Looking back, I wish he would have chosen Georgia so then I could have family nearby AND live where I prefer.
Depends what it is for. If it is for your career and prosperity, I say go for it. I think a healthy family would want you to succeed and not hold you back. If it is a social move where you feel at more at home say, in Chicago, rather than Kentucky for example... I would say definitely go for it. Personally I've tried both and find I have better relationships with my family and when we get together we actually do something fun while living farther away than when I was closer and sometimes would get irritated and just don't ever do anything interesting b/c we saw each other often. On other family members I saw them just as much living across the country as I did 3 hours away.
A little background: I grew up in upstate New York. I currently live with my family in Virginia, but my parents, sister and extended family (and it's a BIG extended family) still live entirely in the Northeast. I love where we live in Virginia, but, in some ways, I really want to move back up north to be closer to my family. Right now we see my parents and sister twice a year and everyone else once in the summer. My kids barely know their cousins. I realize there's a little bit of "The grass is always greener..." thing going on, but still...
Anybody else torn between living in a great location and living where (in many ways) your heart is?
It depends upon your level of independence and how you want to bring your kids up. I often felt bad for those with large families who live close together because it really limited exposure to other areas of the country in terms of vacations because you were expected to be available during typical "free time" in the summers for X, Y or Z's "family events". Maybe it's just me but I would rather have my kids know about the national parks, mountains, beaches, vibrant cities or even Disney World versus the repeated summers with relatives.
Yes. My dh and I both have elderly parents that we have always felt need to come first before our desire to live somewhere more to our personal liking. We look at it like they took care of us for years, and now we need to be available to help them as they face the challenges of aging, so we had pretty much resolved to stay here indefinitely.
The only problem with this right now is that my dh was recently laid off from his job and is having an awful time finding something else here (Upper Midwest/Great Lakes), and also suffers from asthma and sinusitis from the cold, damp weather here in "the sinus belt". It is starting to look like we may have to search outside of our (well, our parents') comfort zone for employment for him, but I look at it like if we have to move to have enough income to live on, then how could they expect us to do anything else?
Fortunately for us, I am still employed and am a well seasoned RN of 23 years and as such will probably be able to find employment just about anywhere, but we can't make it on just my income so we will have to do whatever is necessary to survive, even if it means moving to another state where he can find a decent job as well.
Last edited by canudigit; 02-02-2013 at 03:09 PM..
I've struggled with this issue for a long time now. My family (my parents, one of my sisters and her family, and my extended family) all live in Colorado. We moved to Oregon 5 years ago, actually to be closer to my husband's sister. Unfortunately, that actually hurt our relationship with her, which is another story in and of itself. Anyhow, the move was extremely difficult for me. It's gotten a bit better over the years, but I suppose that's because we've made some wonderful friends here and explored the PNW.
However, at times like holidays, birthdays, and family gatherings, it's still very hard. I also worry about my parents, my mom especially, as they get a bit older. My grandmother turned 87 this year and I wonder how much longer she is going to be around. My nephews are growing up and I'm missing that. We get back to Colorado maybe once or twice a year, at the most.
We are really considering moving back to Colorado, but we also love where we live now. I'm not sure what the answer is, but you only get one family (well...mostly) so that weighs heavily on me.
A bit. The only family I have in the USA is my immediate family. They're in DC. I've wanted to get away from home for a while. Some of the places I want to move to (namely Atlanta) aren't that far, but others (Maine, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Colorado) are pretty far. I don't want to be super far from family but I also want to live somewhere that's totally different from where I grew up.
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