Work situation stinks, lots of my friends have kids that are in the ten to teens range so they are always busy (understandably), a few other friends moved away. Sick of the whole situation. I feel the same but it seems everybody else has changed.
What does it feel like to just show up in a new town? Thinking about looking for a job far away from the city - job situation probably even worse than in a big city but may not need as much.
What does it feel like to sort of start-over again?
Lonely.
Exhilarating 
Lonely and exhilirating. Moreso the first though. Being in a city where you know only one person and don’t know where anything is is a bit frightening too.
But it can be fun.
I’m lazy.
It is a nice place to live. The weather can be a bit strange, all four seasons in a month. People are nice. Good schools,health care, so-so job outlook. Pro football team to the west, college hoops to the east.
I’m scared to move.
I move back to my home town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan after living 11 years in Boulder, CO - a place many rate as one of the best small cities in the country.
Why did I come back? Because I never could really get the hang of living anywhere else. I just stepped outside on my deck here at 12:30 at night, and the air smells different than anywhere else in the world. The place has a feel to it that I just missed when I live anywhere else. I missed the lake, I missed the town, I missed the woods.
I might not stay here the rest of my life, but I’m not leaving anytime soon. It’s a great place.
I live less than a mile away from my parents and my childhood home. But this year more than any other in my 32 years of existance has made me wish I lived farther away from them and I am ashamed of it.
I stayed in Las Vegas because its all I’ve ever known. I have traveled to other cities and have been interested but not enough to uproot my young family and take a chance. It has just always seemed to me that its easier to find a job in this city- for some reason I find it hard to believe its possible to thrive anywhere else.
Probably more of a problem with me and my job situation. Running away will not solve that - or maybe it could force me into a better situation.
Tiring. But then, it was a long trip.
It felt a little bit scary at first, but all in all it was a lot of fun.
Practically speaking, starting over in a new place was expensive every time I’ve done it, although I’m all itchy footed again and if the chance came up would definitely uproot and move on.
I don’t really get staying in one place forever, on a gut level. There’s really nothing to be afraid of in moving on. You will survive. (Especially if you line up a job first.) And a move doesn’t have to be permanent, of course. If you don’t like it, you can move on again. If you find out you’re really a “home” person, you can go home, and you will have found something out that you needed to know. Nothing bad there either.
Why liit yourself to the US? There are lots of really nice places to live and work in the world.
Since 1983 I have lived in Bahrain, Cyprus and Saudi and worked in Turkey, Greece, Kuwait, the Emirates, and a few other places. All of them were scary and lonely when I first arrived but I soon got over it. The hard part is remembering to not compare one place with another. They are all different.
Best of luck
Testy
I don’t get it either. I don’t know whether I picked it up in college, where there was a new dorm room every fall or in the years following, where I transferred to a new city every year for five years (followed by a 2.5 year stay in another city, then 2 years in the town I’m currently in), but I look forward to moving, to new cities. Part of me would like to find out where ‘home’ is for me - because, as Idlewild said, moving is expensive.
Moving is clean - I love a new apartment, completely free of my stuff, just waiting to be lived in. I love exploring a new town and a new area, learning the ways to get around that only the ‘natives’ really know. Finding those hole in the wall restaurants.
Starting over feels like a new beginning for me, only you don’t lose the friends you made in your last new town.
And yeah, if you hate it, you can always move on or move back.