Following your dreams to your city... (Denver: home, buyer, living)

[DenverLawGal]

congrats on your move, I hope your life continues to be happy with the new change.

[toro168]

great novel, us too will be there in Oct, from FL to Charlotte (10 years) and one morning woke up, me and my wife look at each other and said screw it, lets move to Denver. Quit our jobs and packing up as I typed. Excited and nervous but I know it will be alright.

[formercalifornian]

Eleven years ago, sitting outside Molinari's on a vacation to San Francisco, my husband and I said the same thing to each other. We spent eight glorious years living in NorCal. We then moved to Maryland and spent eighteen months loving the mid-atlantic area and all it has to offer. Now, we're in Colorado, rejoicing in its wonderful, varied splendor.

It disturbs me how often I hear people railing against this area or that, as if they can't embrace a new adventure without deriding the last. I look back on all the places I've lived with fond memories.

It's a big, gorgeous country and I plan to see as much of it as possible!

[famlife]

very inspirational thread..

when the exciting thought of a move subsides, you are left with all these anxieties and choices and things that would have originally been fun to think about turn into major dillemas... i need to remember that, yeah, you can always move again. and yeah, you do never know how it'll be till you're there, no matter how many ppl u ask about it... and yeah, it'll be alright... even if it ends up not working out, it can't be worse than regretting never giving it a shot.

i don't even care if we end up in CO or if it's AZ at this point. get me out west, save the details for later. as long as we have a house and food and sunshine, the rest will work itself out naturally.

[drb85650]

First, Thanks to all for not flaming me! As I said, was talking mostly to myself. Trace my post here, you'll find we've strongly considered moving to Ohio(gasp heard around the world!). Pulling the opposite of common sense, leaving a thriving area, good climate, southeastern Arizona, good jobs.....yeah, I know, nuts, huh?
Like so many others here, it is the desire for what as children we considered "home". It is the smell of leaves in fall, lightning bugs, football in cold weather(try to enjoy football in 90' weather, even with a dome it just "ain't right"), cracked sidewalks with great trees pushing them up, old buildings made of brick, not adobe.
But reality seemed to finally get a toehold when we read post in the Cleveland forum describing not just the depressed economy etc...but the feeling of oppression over the entire area. Having lived in a area full of ancient Indian history and ritual, oppression is a real thing.
Well, talked and rambled enough. Wanderlust is real too. Seems like whenever I give in to it, the homesickness starts.....

[Ghostgecko]

Original Poster here! Wow, life is different, it's been a wake-up call for sure, and not just the temperature! But things don't come together in one month, so I am still optimistic. The first day I set foot in the mountains with a smile I knew I was home...So far, so good. Just taking it one day at a time...

[DenverLawGal]

hey!!! welcome back!!! and welcome!! thanks so much for coming back to let us know how it's going!!

[formercalifornian]

I'm sending warm thoughts your way. Hang in there, and WELCOME!

[subsound]

The first 6 months are hard. I've lived in many places, mostly in Colorado but across the US and Europe....even how wonderful it is to get there and excited it is hard. Best of luck! Know it will get better if it's hard and the people around you will cheer for you

[PeixeGato]

I love reading inspiring posts like these. And I love the fact that the standard negativity that usually creeps up has not done so here. I love reading about how people make the decision to follow their hearts and not worry so much about what they are "supposed" to be doing or where they are "supposed" to be living.

I have so many friends who all live within 25-30 miles of the one or two houses in which they grew up. Their parents live in the same house in which they grew up in and their grandparents often also live in close proximity. My point is not that living near family is negative, but rather that I just don't understand their lack of any desire to experience something or someplace new and different. Most of them have never spent more than a week at a time away from their "home base" at any one time and most could never conceive of the idea of picking up and moving someplace else simply out of curiosity. They have a disturbingly high comfort level with their current lives and have no interest in changing anything. I often find that I have little to talk about with many of these people, even though they are as close as family and I have fond memories of my formative years with them.

I watch those shows on HGTV about people looking for a new house. Young couples with no kids looking to buy a big house in the "burbs" because they want to find that one special house that their kids will call home, grow up in, head off to college from, and return with their own children to visit and wonder how can they possibly think and plan that far into the future. Its one thing to look up 25 years later and realize that you are still in the same place because you love it so much. But to be 25 years old and planning to be in that one place for the next 25 years is baffling to me. But I guess to each their own.

I grew up in the DC area, spent a couple of years in MI for grad school, lived in the NYC area, and now live in NorCal. What's funny is that with each move (with the exception of the move to MI), I thought I was making the "final move" and that the place I was moving to would be the utopia that I thought I was looking for (I guess I too was looking for what the young couples in those HGTV shows was looking for). What I have come to realize, accept, and now embrace is that such a place simply does not exist, at least not for me. This isn't a bad thing, rather I have realized that its not that I can't find a nice place to live. Its that I am not the type of person who is satisfied living in one place for many many years. I want to explore and this goes beyond the confines of the borders of this country.

Now that we have a child, things are a bit more complicated when it comes to the idea of moving as we battle with the two opposing philosophies (i.e. one that says its best for kids to grow up in one place that they can identify with and call home vs. the philosophy that says kids will do just fine and will even thrive on having the opportunity to experience living in many different places). Extended family is also a factor, now that there is a grandchild in the picture. But I just can't accept living in a particular place just because that is the place that someone else decided was right for them.

The Internet has blessed us all with the ability to communicate with and connect with people that we've never met and may not ever meet, but that share similar interests. I find these threads to be uplifting and inspiring. And as our family considers Denver as a possible place for the next chapter in our lives, I have come to terms with the fact that while we may fall in love with Denver, it will undoubtedly not be the last place we call home.