I’ve arrived at a time in my life where I’m ready to move on. I’ve always wanted to be “somewhere different” and dreamed of living overseas, but I’ve finally gotten to a point where I know exactly what I’m looking for and why where we currently live isn’t it. Yes, I am quite aware of my pronoun usage and you’ll be happy to know Melissa and I (more or less) agree on all these points – I just don’t like to speak for others. Here’s what I know…
I want to live within walking and biking distance to much of the things I like to do. This means walking to our favorite restaurant, being closer to central social activities, riding to the market for produce or heading down to the corner cafe on a beautiful Sunday morning for coffee. This is possible in some planned suburban communities, but the location of our current neighborhood is not one of them. We (currently) can only walk to an Exxon and biking anywhere includes a fairly perilous batch of roads that pose a true safety concern. We’ve actually taken to racking our bikes to Ashburn-proper after work, just to have somewhere decent to ride. Lame.
I want to live in a place where the great outdoors is at our fingertips. Northern Virginia is actually a fairly decent place in this respect with the mountains to the west and beaches to the east. We don’t make a good use of them, but that is partially because you have to drive 2+ hours in both directions to get to the good stuff. To do any of these things, you’re talking about a seriously long day trip or looking for cheap ways to spend the night. I’d much rather be able to enjoy hiking, biking, waterways, parks, trees and nature in my own backyard or with a short car ride.
I want to live in an area with less traffic. I don’t like having to plan my life around certain times of the day and I am most certainly not into sitting at countless lights among a mass of cars every time I want to go somewhere. I don’t mind cars on the road per se, it’s being forced to deal with the sheer volume or getting stuck behind a wall of vehicles I can’t see around that doesn’t agree with me. A lot of this can be remedied by living closer to the places I want to be, but there’s just something about traffic in this area that really gets to me.
I want to live in a climate where I enjoy the weather more than four months of the year. It’s no secret I hate humidity and while it’s true I love the winter, I don’t feel this region makes good use of it. We get a solid level of cold but much like this past winter, we often suffer through it without the pleasantness that is snow. Give me real winters with legitimate winter activities, or give me an area that’s temperate all the time and within a reasonable distance to the mountains.
I want to live in a house with an interesting floor plan and an attention to detail. Don’t get me wrong, I love our house and the home we’ve made out of it. I do, however, find myself drawn to really old places that were gutted and rebuilt or trendy (gasp!) open condos with multi-use rooms. I’ve really gotten into shows like House Hunters & House Hunters International (especially) and after seeing many of the featured places, I’ve realized a big house in the ‘burbs ain’t for me. I’d rather have less space that is highly functional instead of several rooms we heat/cool and never use. Honestly, I’d rather spend time outside enjoying people, places and things than holed up in my house. I’m pretty sure France is to blame.
(Note: I typo’d 3 of 5 paragraphs above as “I want to love…” before catching it. I suspect it was not fortuitous.)
I can hear you asking the questions now.
First, I think there was a confluence of events that led to us living in the suburbs so far from all the things we like doing. After getting married, buying a house just seemed like a natural progression. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford anything closer than Leesburg, which led to jobs in Loudoun County, which led to another house in Loudoun County. Combine this with a Chris in his 20s who was unhappy and didn’t want to do stuff; you get the perfect recipe for a homebody. Now that I’m more accepting of who I am and know what I like, I feel as though my house should be less of an excuse to keep me busy. Before, I did what I thought was expected because I had no idea what I wanted. Now, I know I want.
Second, a lot of people raise kids in smaller houses located in more urban areas. No, I’m not saying we’re going to have kids. I am saying that it would be silly to discuss our future living situation and not at least consider the possibility that we’d be raising a family at some point. I think the suburbs are the right fit for a lot of families, and we might end up there eventually should we have one, but I don’t think it’s an automatic. For the time being, and at least the first five years of any yet-to-be-planned-kid’s lives, I want my family to be city dwellers.
So what does this all mean? Absolutely nothing… until Melissa finishes grad school.
Boulder? Asheville? Vancouver? Seattle?
Stop writing… Start doing… and adjust and tweak things as you go. Hard to have it all exactly the way you want it before you have kids. Kids don’t really care where they live as long as they have loving parents, and they only start caring about making and maintaining friendships after they start kindergarten (which is a long time from now).
Not that you asked me what I thought about it 🙂
I appreciate the “has kids” perspective. I’ve started talking to my boss about getting paid to work remote. He has nothing against the idea, since he does it himself, but I need to work out a few things first. I think the largest part is going to be finding a museum with an opening specific to Melissa’s skills/interest. At this point, I really have no idea where we’d end up.
Late reply, Mike… your comment got snapped up by spam filter.
We’ve talked about Boulder, Charlotte, Seattle and Chicago – in that order. As with my previous comment, a lot depends on museum jobs.
Although it sure is great to move away and see something new, you may miss family once you get there, more than you might take them for granted now. Good luck. I liked that I got out of Northern Virginia. But I miss my family terribly. I haven’t been home since July 2010. It’s sad, and then your wife becomes ill or something, you are the one to take care of everything if you don’t know anyone or have family in Seattle. My wife became deathly ill this year and it was difficult for us, considering she spent 41 days in the hospital.