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As one who has relocated twice, both times thousands of miles, l can suggest that two months is nowhere near the amount of time it takes to get used to a new place especially given the circumstances under which you moved. Give yourself more time, there's no timetable for these things.
Try to get out as much as possible. I have moved over 20 times in my lifetime and it takes a year or two to acclimate to a new area. Home is where you hang your hat.
Orngcat, I hope you find happiness in this holiday season & have a better 2017. We moved from Indiana to California, then 16 years later to Tennessee. Both moves took me about a year to adjust to. Internet shopping for the things you really like, & Skyping with friends help.. Eventually you will find different interests and make more friends in your new area. If things don't work out, maybe you decide to move back. We had to make it here, can't afford to get back in the CA housing market! Hang in there!
I moved at least thirteen times in the early part of our marriage but now we've held still for decades. The moving when I was young was always a new adventure and a step up to a new job and new life. Now I don't know how it would feel to leave this fine old Victorian that we have made distinctly ours by our talents and hard work. I sympathize and encourage you to work for that elusive flexibility that keeps us young in our maturity.
Still, it's a different thing to have nostalgia. You can have flexibility and optimism and still get those sentimental pangs of loss. I get them occasionally and think they are a normal part of moving on in age. A little piece of the grief that goes along with being human and the gift of being able to feel.
Orgnkat, you should have seen me at the stop light the other day when I was out running Christmas errands. It had been a successful afternoon. I found what I wanted, enjoyed the holiday spirit and the generally cheerful camaraderie of people anticipating the holiday. I was feeling content.
Then the radio began to play poor little Karen Carpenter singing, "I'll be Home for Christmas." My first thought was, No, I won't. I don't even have a home anymore!
Now, I haven't lived in the house I grew up in since I was eighteen and it's been sold out of the family for about fifteen years. And long before that Mom and Dad were no longer living there.
I had my own home and my own children coming for Christmas. Lucky me. But just for a minute you should have seen that poor orphan sitting at the stop light, tears running down her cheeks because there was no "home" to go to for Christmas.
We recently moved from our long time home to an entirely new place - new climate, new culture, etc. It was primarily an economic move as we were able to sell our home for a good profit and needed to move to a place with much less expensive real estate. However, after two months, I find myself feeling what I guess is homesickness. I think a lot about what we left behind - the geography, the culture, the climate, the sky, the food and all the familiar things. Things here seem alien and not up to par with what we left behind. Would love to hear that this is just part of trying something new and that with time, we will feel better about our decision. Did you move to an entirely new place and did it take some time to learn to like it?
It is possible to move somewhere new, get used to it and like or even love things about it, but still become homesick later on. That happened to me; there is one major thing I love about the place we moved that does not exist in my longtime home area.
Home means different things to different people. Even on an individual basis I find it hard to identify other than to say it is something you FEEL, not something you think. All the matrixes, lists of pluses and minuses, published statistics, and other numbers mean zilch if it doesn't feel right.
Two months after moving, I did not feel homesick at all. I was actively immersing myself in the new area and different opportunities. Not having familiar things around didn't bother me, as it is always interesting to learn about different places. It took much longer--years--to realize it was not truly home. And we had moved to a HIGHER COL area, unlike you, so I was motivated to stay a long time.
Give it more time, because two months is pretty short. But eventually, let your heart be your guide, assuming you can absorb the financial hit of another big move.
Depends. If you moved from Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale and expected the salmon, sushi, and Thai to be comparable, good luck with that. Not up to par, so to speak. And with junkies, bums, and dirtbags slouching around in the good weather, well, those undead are everywhere. Look under the expressway in Seattle, you'll find plenty there too.
Likewise, moving from Chicago to Seattle, I've yet to see a pizza half as good in the former. With rare exceptions, and it ain't the same, no-way.
And...so what? I'm bailing out of Seattle at some point in a decade or two, God willing taking million($) in real estate profit ...if life cooperates, of course, and I have no more crystal ball than others. Retirement is about adjustment, my old man went through it on two fronts within a couple years: loss of job, and loss of spouse (my mom). He stayed put, which was his choice, to the day he passed twenty years later.
When I move to a new town I start walking the streets, smell that air and the new scents. In California, suprised what I smelled: all the fennel growing wild gave a faint licorice undertone. Too, the brackish Sacramento Delta, never far from where I lived, and the Martinez refineries all added to an interesting olfactory ambience. I grew to like all of it over time. Smelled better than Reno and the desert sage of most of Nevada.
I lamented some of that moving to Seattle, where the primary scent is pine and much, much cleaner air. And cops who generally like more law-and-order, for better and worse. Again, walking the streets of Redmond, Mill Creek, downtown on Alaskan Way, and others places sort of put it in perspective. Couple seasons passed, I stopped pretending it was Bay Area Lite and got busy living instead of dying.
Hope that helps.
Last edited by Blondebaerde; 12-25-2016 at 04:20 PM..
Such great advice. Thanks all! There is much to like here and the reality is we've only been here two months. Just feeling penned in by seasonal expectations and the cold weather we are not accustomed to. And a peculiar situation...the house we bought here came with a tenant until spring so we are having to rent and wait to get settled.
I don't know how cold it is there, but it SHOULD be cold in winter, and esp. at Christmas. I'm from the deep south where short sleeves at Christmas is the norm, and the grass is green. I'm there now...the a/c is running. It doesn't feel Christmas-y at all. So maybe you'll get used to the cold. It sounds heavenly to me, here in a subtropical climate.
I know how you feel. I am going thru that myself right now. But it's too late, so a person has to make the best of it. I remind myself of the reasons I made the decision, but they seem distant now, and less important than the things I left behind. But after I find a house, I'm sure I'll settle in and grow to love my new location as much as the one I left.
AND I remind myself of an irony: Where I just moved from, I had moved there years ago for employment and HATED IT THERE for a couple of years. I grew to love it, though, for the good things it had. Every place has good points and bad points.
In time you'll grow to love your new place, probably, as you get more oriented and familiar with everything. You'll have your routines..which stores you go to, which routes you take, which movie theaters you like, which eateries. The kinds of plants that grow there, the look of the terrain at certain times of year. The look of some of the neighborhoods, the people there.
I agree with the others that a couple of months isn't long enough.
Such great advice. Thanks all! There is much to like here and the reality is we've only been here two months. Just feeling penned in by seasonal expectations and the cold weather we are not accustomed to. And a peculiar situation...the house we bought here came with a tenant until spring so we are having to rent and wait to get settled.
I'm not surprised that you don't feel at home yet because you are in limbo with having to rent until spring. Once you get into your new home and start nesting, I bet you'll feel so much better about the move. Hang in there!
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