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Nice. I'm from Colorado, currently living in Virginia! I moved here from California (military) back in April. I've passed through here before, though only for short tours. This time we are here long enough to unpack and move in. We are enjoying it so far. Looking forward to the fall. Very pretty!
OMG, you will love fall in Virginia. Take a look at these pictures I took in Williamsburg in October a couple of years ago:
As a military brat, then wife, and now mom (visiting grown kids stationed all over the world), I feel that home is where family gets together, and for me whatever house I'm living in feels like "home" when I hang the pictures!
Seriously, once inside my house, I always feel at home because of all the things I've collected in my travels, and family heirlooms, which surround me and feel familiar. I think I hang on to mementos - furniture and collectibles handed down from my grandmother, interesting items I've picked up from the different places I've lived, and most of all, my extensive collection of nicely framed family photos - because THOSE things make a place feel like home to me, rather than the actual house. The house is really almost unimportant.
Now - the TOWN is different. It usually takes me about a year to feel like a place is familiar and warm to me - in other words, for me to feel a sense of attachment and affection. Some places take longer. In all my travels, there's only one place that I NEVER ended up feeling affectionate toward, and that was Fort Hood, Texas. UGH.
Ironically, years later, I ended up moving BACK to Texas (east Texas) and lo and behold, I met and married a Texan! Being an East Coast gal for the most part, it took me several years to learn to appreciate Texas - but now I've lived here nearly 20 years and I have grown to truly love this area.
I am basically talking a new state or country. Will you always feel a "home" attachment to where you lived the majority of your years? For those who move around all the time, the question probably wouldn't apply. For instance, I just moved from MI to NV and I hear this all the time where people move back home stating that they just didn't feel "at home".
Human nature?
I loved the small town I lived in for the first eighteen years of my life, but, of course, while it was in every sense my hometown, I was quite aware that my parents home was the home they had made into which I was fitted. There was always a sense that this house was only my own home to a small degree.
But I have a real treasure box of loving memories of the place, but I am well aware that this lovely little village is as dead as a dinosaur, and changed utterly.
Then I lived in a major city for forty years, most of it in the same neighborhood -- I loved it for most of that time, though after I moved from that neighborhood I never felt the same degree of happiness and belonging as before I moved. So, I was already losing my sense of home in that city. And the city was changing rapidly at this point as well. Again, I have wonderful, exciting memories of my young manhood and middle age in that city....but that city, as it was then was already something else by the time I left.
I moved to Europe in my sixties, to a country where I knew no one and spoke the language with only passable fluency. I have lived here twelve years. I returned to the U.S. for five weeks in 2009, and I could not wait to leave, I was close to tears of relief and gratitude when my plane put down the next day in my new country. I will never return to the U.S. again. I love the town I live in, it is wonderfully beautiful surrounded by the sea with small mountains behind it. I have a few, close, loving friends who have taken care of me in extreme illness. And I care about the country and the city even though I am a resident alien. It is my home, and I love it.
My home is where I live, where I feel able to put down roots. Where I am comfortable. It is not a single place in time, nor a single place on the map.
I still refer to South Dakota as "home" and I have not lived there in 7 years. I grew up there, my parents, and family are still there. When we go to visit I always say I'm going back "home" for the weekend.
I am closer to "home" now as we have just moved to MN from IA. We were in IA for 7 years (since leaving SD) and it NEVER felt like home. I have only been in our MN town 2 weeks, but it already feels more like home than IA did (minus having to live in a tiny apartment now) but no matter where I live. South Dakota will always be home.
It really depends on the type of person and why they moved in the first place.
I moved from a big city in the metro Detroit area, to a MUCH smaller suburb in Birmingham, AL. I moved for love; moved for my husband. The economy is obviously much better here than in Detroit. Now, almost 2 years later, talking about raising a family, I do not feel that I could raise a family here in the south when I am a city girl/ midwestern girl thru and thru!!
If I had moved to a closer state, I wouldn't feel as much of an outsider as I do here. Can't seem to get my roots in here. While one of our drives up to Michigan, (trying to avoid Ohio lol), we drove thru Indianapolis and fell in love. Hoping to move there within a year. It felt like home in just the few vists. Also, a visit to Omaha, Nebraska (husbands hometown), it also felt like home to me.
For me Detroit is where I grew up, was raised, and where my family is. But def not home anymore, and even if the economy goes back to what it used to be, I still wouldn't want to go back there and live.
As others have said, it depends on the situation. If someone spent much of their life in a place, it would be a very tough transition to move elsewhere, and many of those people move back "home" after some time.
I moved here to the Seattle area from Nebraska 3 years ago. My boss back there was telling me that he knew all kinds of people who moved to "greener pastures" to places they thought would be more exciting such as the west coast only to move back because, in his mind, no other place could compare to Nebraska. The reality was that for those people, they had never lived anywhere else and couldn't handle living outside of their home comfort area. He told me I'd feel the same way, but I did not- I missed that work place and those people- and still do- but never regret moving, it is vastly better living here in my opinion.
However the difference for me is that I moved around a lot as a kid, and only lived in Nebraska for 12 years becuase I moved there for my first job after college and ended up staying for that long. So for me I don't have deep roots anywhere- with Nebraska having been the longest I lived anywhere so it did feel comfortable and familiar, but there wasn't an unbreakable bond as people would have to a place they grew up or lived their entire lives.
I loved the small town I lived in for the first eighteen years of my life, but, of course, while it was in every sense my hometown, I was quite aware that my parents home was the home they had made into which I was fitted. There was always a sense that this house was only my own home to a small degree.
But I have a real treasure box of loving memories of the place, but I am well aware that this lovely little village is as dead as a dinosaur, and changed utterly.
Then I lived in a major city for forty years, most of it in the same neighborhood -- I loved it for most of that time, though after I moved from that neighborhood I never felt the same degree of happiness and belonging as before I moved. So, I was already losing my sense of home in that city. And the city was changing rapidly at this point as well. Again, I have wonderful, exciting memories of my young manhood and middle age in that city....but that city, as it was then was already something else by the time I left.
I moved to Europe in my sixties, to a country where I knew no one and spoke the language with only passable fluency. I have lived here twelve years. I returned to the U.S. for five weeks in 2009, and I could not wait to leave, I was close to tears of relief and gratitude when my plane put down the next day in my new country. I will never return to the U.S. again. I love the town I live in, it is wonderfully beautiful surrounded by the sea with small mountains behind it. I have a few, close, loving friends who have taken care of me in extreme illness. And I care about the country and the city even though I am a resident alien. It is my home, and I love it.
My home is where I live, where I feel able to put down roots. Where I am comfortable. It is not a single place in time, nor a single place on the map.
It really depends on the type of person and why they moved in the first place.
I moved from a big city in the metro Detroit area, to a MUCH smaller suburb in Birmingham, AL. I moved for love; moved for my husband. The economy is obviously much better here than in Detroit. Now, almost 2 years later, talking about raising a family, I do not feel that I could raise a family here in the south when I am a city girl/ midwestern girl thru and thru!!
If I had moved to a closer state, I wouldn't feel as much of an outsider as I do here. Can't seem to get my roots in here. While one of our drives up to Michigan, (trying to avoid Ohio lol), we drove thru Indianapolis and fell in love. Hoping to move there within a year. It felt like home in just the few vists. Also, a visit to Omaha, Nebraska (husbands hometown), it also felt like home to me.
For me Detroit is where I grew up, was raised, and where my family is. But def not home anymore, and even if the economy goes back to what it used to be, I still wouldn't want to go back there and live.
Loved Omaha! My BIL and SIL moved there from Metro Detroit. For work reasons. They have two young children and they just love it! They do miss family, but to them they feel as if they "fit" much better there. What a nice city it was! I also think it is much easier to find a "fit" when you have young children as they get involved in school and extras. Good way to meet people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm31828
As others have said, it depends on the situation. If someone spent much of their life in a place, it would be a very tough transition to move elsewhere, and many of those people move back "home" after some time.
I moved here to the Seattle area from Nebraska 3 years ago. My boss back there was telling me that he knew all kinds of people who moved to "greener pastures" to places they thought would be more exciting such as the west coast only to move back because, in his mind, no other place could compare to Nebraska. The reality was that for those people, they had never lived anywhere else and couldn't handle living outside of their home comfort area. He told me I'd feel the same way, but I did not- I missed that work place and those people- and still do- but never regret moving, it is vastly better living here in my opinion.
However the difference for me is that I moved around a lot as a kid, and only lived in Nebraska for 12 years becuase I moved there for my first job after college and ended up staying for that long. So for me I don't have deep roots anywhere- with Nebraska having been the longest I lived anywhere so it did feel comfortable and familiar, but there wasn't an unbreakable bond as people would have to a place they grew up or lived their entire lives.
You are right. That is why I said in my OP that this question doesn't really apply to those who have moved around a lot. This is my first time living anywhere else other than Metro Detroit. It's different. I don't hate it, I actually like it a lot. I was just wondering how other people fared in moving away from a hometown where they actually had "roots".
I am basically talking a new state or country. Will you always feel a "home" attachment to where you lived the majority of your years? For those who move around all the time, the question probably wouldn't apply. For instance, I just moved from MI to NV and I hear this all the time where people move back home stating that they just didn't feel "at home".
Human nature?
It depends if the new place shares characteristics with the old...or is obviously better than the old.
All that I retain from my home town is a love of 19th Century architecture and rolling hills. Give me these two things and I feel right at home.
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