Talk to me!
I completely understand
I know exactly what you mean. For thirteen years, we lived in Boise, Idaho. Granted, it was a nice place, but it never felt like home to me. In fact, it felt like my anti-home for some reason which I've never really been able to fully explain.
By 2003, with my son facing kindergarten, I knew we had to get out, because I felt once he started school we'd be stuck there forever.
It all happened quickly, but things fell into place and we pulled the trigger on moving seven hours north to the panhandle of Idaho. A place that, for the past five years, has had that feeling you are looking for. The feeling of home.
I highly recommend that you listen to the little voice in your head that is telling you to go. Cue up "Time To Change" by The Brady Kids and start packing.
Find a home for yourself and your family.
And, of course, blog about it so we can all follow along.
The trick is figuring out where you DO belong. I keep thinking that one day... on one of my travels... I'll figure that out. It's never come to me.
Let's all move to Maui together. Trix can tend bar, E can work at the telescope, and you and I could start a homeschool/homebrew business.
I got dibs on the top bunk.
We have always known our home isn't here but the only reason we haven't moved on is that exact reason: where is home.
I hope you find it soon.
I was going to suggest you move to my neck of the woods. Lots of foreclosed homes to choose from.
But I like RTK's idea better. Let's all move to Maui.
Orlando's Nice, but I think you might like Portland, Seattle, or Denver. I grew up in Portland and can recommend it heartily. Close enough to Los Angeles to get down there in a day, far enough away that you might as well be on another planet.
Ha! I was totally reading yours while you were reading mine.
I was back in San Diego for few days last week and it really struck me how comfortable I was there. Home will probably always be the St. Lawrence River Valley, but San Diego is a close second. The Bay Area just makes me feel anxious all the time.
flutter- finally, someone gets me
Phil- an "anti-home," that's it exactly! I'll have the kids pack beans in their flashlights straight away
Dave2- I've lived in Tucson, Seattle, San Diego and L.A. markets and one of those felt pretty damn good. We'll see.
RTK- are we teaching kids to homebrew? sweet!
motherbumper- it's tough, because my wife loves the sun and I love the seasons... we'll figure something out
Matthew- don't say that to Tricia, she'll start swimming
John- We've lived in Seattle and I miss it. Portland and Denver have been on our list. I still need to be a fairly quick flight away from L.A. assuming things continue to go well business-wise here. 2 hours is a pretty short flight.
Backpacking Dad- I thought I felt a tickle... we really like San Diego and talked about returning there, but I think I'm done with SoCal- at least for now.
Huddersfield is nice this time of year.
Actually, it isn't really.
Goodness, I am quite exhausted. This post has so many links leading to other links and yet more links that I became caught up in a chain of linkiness and spent quite some time lost on the dark side of your blog. I have only just now made it back to the relative safety of the homepage. At one point you were in the shower with a UPS guy.
I think you should move to Seattle or Portland. The northwest is beautiful, cheaper than where you are, and best of all the UPS guys are top-notch apparently.
Move here! The beer is cold and the healthcare is free.
And you know, you and Daren would get along awesome. 
If you find it, let me know. I actually know where home is--but I can't get there from here.
Ooo Maui.... 
Want to move here and help me start up a vineyard? I need nice people to move here, because it seems we're not leaving. The land itself DOES feel like home.
Have you ever tried findyourspot.com? When I took it it listed a few of my favorite places. When my husband took it it listed the town we're in now! Maybe you and Trisha can both take it and see if any match.
Austin!!!
We are also transplants to Southern California. And in the 4.5 years we have been here it has never felt right and don't know if it ever will.
I feel you. Although we've lived in Vegas for a number of years, it isn't quite home. We're from SoCal, but we can't see ourselves going back there in the future. Frankly, we don't know where home is. I guess a lot of us feel this way. It's sad.
It's a very bad time to make a move. Hopefully you'll find the means. In the meantime, I hope you find some happiness to get you through your days.
That's odd...why do I now have "Midnight Train to Georgia" stuck in my head?
Hope you find the place or state of mind or whatever it is that you're looking for. And hey, if you wanna come check out Austin, you got a place to stay.
I've lived outside of Los Angeles for 10 years now. It does not get even a tiny bit better no matter how much time passes. I am disconnected from myself, and my sadness is about the size of a small plutoid.
Tucson would be a great fit for you. Lots of family to help you out. If not, than I vote Seattle or Austin. Bottom line, just want you to find peace & contentment.
Dan- Huddersfield? I like my iPod, thank you.
Amelia- You should read the one about the Fed-Ex guy. Smokin'.
Karen- I'm not allowed in Canada.
Ed- Can you draw me a map?
Kyra- I'll help you drink a vineyard.
ImPerceptible- I'll do it now. Wait here...
tt- Maybe!!
anonymous- that's nothing to be be embarrassed about
VegasDad- Luckily, working from home makes moving pretty easy and even with the housing market being in the crapper selling our place would still give us a decent amount to buy in less expensive places.
Holmes- um, because you're a Pip? Austin is on the short list!
Henri- I thought L.A. was 1-4.
PrincessNana- I can say that it won't be Tucson. I can't move someplace hotter (well, I'll probably move someplace hotter later, you know, for eternity).
Hey, my friend. Been thinking about your post from yesterday when I came across a great poem that I thought might be of comfort to you.
"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deeprooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest."
-The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham
God I can so relate to this, although it is not just my dwelling, but my job!! I want to go home, and go to work, wherever that may be. It just ain't where it is now.
MetroDad- Dude, you just brought the sophistication level of my blog up beyond my means. Great and appropriate work.
Willie G- I was facing that double whammy for years, luckily this past year I've only had to deal with the town
It's rarely worth commenting if MetroDad gets there first, is it? I probably would have quoted Neil Diamond.
I'm up for the Maui move too. My wife and I have lived in five places in the past ten years--all relatively close though. Where we are now is better than the past couple places because I have a history here, but it's still not right.
Darren- This is our 7th town, well 5 towns, two of them we hit twice, since we've been together (10 years). The first 27 years of my life I lived in one town. Go figure.
Glad to see I'm not the only nomad on the information highway.
I have that same internal dialogue and I have only been gone for 9 1/2 months...oh yea, and I am longing for the place you are hating.
Bogart - I'm in the high desert outside L.A., I hope this isn't the exact spot you're longing for!
I'm sure you've talked about this before, but what's tying you to LA? Or is it just the fact that you don't know where you want to go?
My wife and I are planning on hauling anchor and becoming hippies in a few years when are kids are on their own. Peace out man.
It is a gnawing feeling, isn't it?
Jeff- we're here for my wife's father who and his poor health- stay away from the brown acid
blue- very much so
I can sort of get where you're comin' from.
Not our move back to the 'Bus, but in our current living quarters. We weren't supposed to start looking for a house until at least August. But I've grown so restless at our rental town home that I've just started setting up appointments with real estate agents.
A point not lost on LA Mommy...
Hang in there. It could get better.
i relate to this. i'm from Hawaii originally and am now in Chicago. this isn't home. i've been back to Hawaii many times but all of a sudden that's not home, either. i've traveled the world. been to Prague, London, the Carolinas, Australia, St. John's ... and i still don't think i've found it. although POSSIBLY i have. the one place that really REALLY made me feel something was Snowmass Colorado. well, it was a monastery in Snowmass, but that's something, right?
it's just funny, because each trip i take, i think, "will this be it?" i think the curious thing would be if i'm already where i'm meant to be.
L.A. - it could? I hope so!
Crys- I think it has to be a combo of where we are and who we are when we get there. Good luck on that journey.
Commenting by HaloScan
