Weekend Assignment #287: Do you tend to settle in one place and stay there, or do circumstances or inclination dictate that you move fairly often across the street or across the country? Do you feel you’ve found your “forever” locale, if not your “forever” home?Extra Credit: To the best of your recollection, how many times in your life have you moved?
1976: Norwalk, CT to St. Petersburg, FL
1979: local move
1987: St. Petersburg, FL to Ithaca, NY
1991: Ithaca, NY to Germantown, TN
1997: local move
2002: Germantown, TN to Thousand Oaks, CA
2005: Thousand Oaks to Simi Valley, CA
2008: local move
Since we’re renting the house we currently live in, and there’s no foreseeable prospect of purchasing it (our landlords don’t seem eager to sell it, and we couldn’t afford to buy it anyway), I think it’s pretty likely that we’ll be moving again at some point. I just hope it won’t be in another six months when this lease ends – we’d love to be able to extend it if we can.
While the mechanics of moving are an undeniable pain in the butt, I actually don’t mind the experience of it all that much. There’s a sense of excitement and possibility in settling into a new place. However, I won’t mind if the next move – or two, or however many there are – is another local one, since my long-distance moves average out to just about one per decade of my life. My husband and I planned our last two moves with a bit of overlap between our old leases and our new ones, which allowed us some time to move the small things by ourselves and to get the final cleaning done; we’re getting pretty good at it. (The big things will, as they have been in the past, be loaded, moved, and unloaded by professionals with a big truck. We are way past the point of lining up friends who have pickups and paying them in pizza.) As I said already, odds are that we’ll be doing it again, but we won’t be going very far. My stepson is only in the fourth grade; the co-parenting arrangements for him and his older sister are in place till he turns eighteen, and they require both parents to live in the same vicinity. Once he’s out of high school, though, it’s anybody’s guess.
Tall Paul has made his share of moves too, but they’ve all been short-distance or local; he’s never lived anywhere outside the Greater Los Angeles area, and that’s one reason he enjoys planning family trips out of state. We’ve talked about many reasons not to stay in California once the kids are grown – who knows where they’ll end up? (Mine’s not even here in the first place, and I don’t think it’s likely that he ever will be.) But if they don’t venture too far away and our parents are still around, we probably won’t take off across the country ourselves. Besides, we’re not getting any younger ourselves, and we’re kind of spoiled by the weather here. Tall Paul hates extreme heat, and I have no desire to return to long, cold, snowy winters – so who knows where we’ll end up?
Are you a mover, or do your roots grow deep into native soil? If you’re so moved, I hope you’ll write a post for this Weekend Assignment, hosted as always at Outpost Mâvarin. Here’s how it works:
- Please post your entry no later than Friday, October 9th at 6 PM. (You can also post your response in the comments thread, but a blog entry is better. )
- Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to this entry.
- Please come back here after you’ve posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below.
- Visiting other participants’ entries is strongly encouraged!
- Karen is always looking for topic ideas. Please email her at mavarin2 AT gmail.com if there’s a Weekend Assignment theme you’d like to see. If she uses your idea, you will be credited as that week’s “guest professor.”
It takes me a long time to settle in to a place and set things up just right. Often, by the the time I do so, it's time to move again. I'm trying to change that this time around.
Nicole – I kind of know what you mean. Sometimes it takes me awhile to feel like a place is "mine" enough to change it much. I don't know if the fact that I've been a renter more than I've been a homeowner is part of that, but since I felt that way even with the one house I did own, I suspect it might be.
I've moved quite a few times, too, but only once was it local. I'm pretty sure we'll move some more before it's all over with.
I've moved a lot in my life as well. Now, in retirement, we are moving all around the country in our RV. We will probably settle somewhere in a few years.
My first big move was from Wisconsin to Southern California when I was 14. My mother still lives in Simi Valley and loves it. It is such a lovely area and a great place to raise a family or to just settle down.
I'm not much of a mover at all. I don't like any part of it. Well, except for the part of being in a new place. That is a good feeling, until you realize you need to unpack all the stuff you packed up and find a place for it.
Can you tell I don't like moving? 🙂
Kathy (Bermudaonion) – There may be at least one more long-distance move ahead of me, but as I mentioned, it's not likely to happen for at least ten years or so.
Margot – That sounds like such a fun way to explore the country and see where you'd like to land!
Hmmm, I wonder if your mom is one of my neighbors?
Mike – Yeah, moving would be much nicer if you could just start over with new stuff and skip all the packing and unpacking business. That's not so fun.
I guess this explains why you've never lived very far from Chicago…
I've moved a few times in my life, mostly when I was a child because my dad was in the service. He retired early enough that I never grew tired of the "moving on" feeling and so every once in a while I get the urge to move. Hubby isn't so inclined so he puts up with my occasional dreamy talk of moving to another city or state.
I hate the packing and the actual moving just as you do, but as you said, there's a sense of excitement that comes along with it. I think this is part of the reason why I'm not completely torn up about the city buying our house and us having to move elsewhere (I just wish they'd hurry it up).
I may look into how much it would cost to hire actual movers this time around. I'm not sure how the in-laws and my parents will react to that if we do go that route. Especially since we'll be staying in town. I don't think they'd see it as being cost efficient, whereas I would see it as saving my arms and sanity.
Wendy (Literary Feline) – My mom used to get bitten by the moving bug every now and then, but since that wasn't always an option, sometimes she'd just rearrange the furniture instead :-).
So you don't know yet when you'll actually have to move? I can imagine that must be frustrating – it's hard to make plans. But I'd definitely recommend hiring movers if you can swing the cost. Even though we usually do a lot of the packing ourselves, not having to deal with the furniture is totally worth it.
What's interesting to me here is that you lived all up and down the east coast before coming west. What was your favorite eastern locale?
Karen – Keeping in mind that the East Coast moves up until 1987 were my parents' decisions…
As you know, the Finger Lakes region is beautiful during the 4.5 months when it's not wintry :-). Even so, in almost every way except ideologically, Tennessee has been my favorite place to live. Seven years later, I still miss Southern food!