Several dopers have moved over the past few years, including me. So, fellow relocated dopers, care to share?
Do you feel at home yet?
Do you think you will?
How long have you been at your new home
Male or female?
family or single?
Where’d you move to and from?
Anything else you think it worthwhile
I’m a single 52 year old woman, and on Sept 23, I will have been in Seattle for a year (moved from Anchorage, Alaska). I’m not really feeling at home yet, not tragically so…just sort of “Meh”. If someone had told me that a year ago, I’d have laughed at them. I do feel homesick, but I think I could feel at home here, if I just knew how.
So what do you all do when you move, to settle in and start loving your new home that is?
Do you feel at home yet?
Yes and No. I feel comfortable and happy to be here, but New Zealand will always be ‘home’. It probably took two years for me to feel this level of comfort and happiness, which isn’t to say I was unhappy, but it was definitely a huge change and I needed time to adjust.
Do you think you will?
I don’t think I’ll change from my answer above.
**How long have you been at your new home **
Five years in November
Male or female?
Female
family or single?
Married, no children
Where’d you move to and from?
New Zealand to United Kingdom
Anything else you think it worthwhile
What I’ve found interesting about moving is that I could equally argue that NZ/UK culture is very similar and/or very different. It really depends what aspects you focus on. I found myself over-focussing on the differences for a bit, and had to give myself a bit of a poke to stop being such a grumpus.
I’ve never felt at home completely. Part of the reason I think is because I am alone for long periods of time while my husband is out of town working. So this is a new country for me and I hardly know anyone and I have to look after my toddler alone most of the time.
Do you think you will?
I hope in 10 years I will have settled and feel like I belong here. Make my house my own.
How long have you been at your new home
I moved to the US 6 years ago and in my new home that we bought a year ago. Now that I “own” my home it feels like I’m stuck here.
Male or female? Female 38
family or single? Family
Where’d you move to and from?Canada to USA
Anything else
When I moved from a city to an island in puget sound it was very lonely. I’m actually going home to Canada and I’m happy. I sometimes regret marrying an American and agreeing to move here. There are other factors but it sucks never feeling at home. I know the solution isn’t returning because I have a romanticized idea of home that I need to get over. I miss my family and friends. I miss my old life sometimes. I miss running into people I know. Sadly this is a topic I think about a lot. My husband gets me tickets to go back whenever I want. I know he realizes he isn’t around and I want to be with my family.
Do you think you will?
At this point, probably not.
How long have you been at your new home?
I’ve lived in New Jersey and worked in New York since 1980, in my current apt. for about five years.
Male or female?
Female
family or single?
Single
Where’d you move to and from?
I grew up on the Phila. Main Line, and honest, that’s the only place that’s ever felt like “home” to me, even though I moved away in 1975.
Heh. What is it with Philly natives? Our initial move is almost identical, Eve (1974, Bucks County). I’ve lived in the West ever since and though I feel at home after about a year in all of the dozen or so states we’ve moved to, honest to God “home” is where there are deciduous trees, fireflies, the Wissahickon Drive and cheesesteaks.
Hey, it was a great place to grow up! I’d never move back, though; the economy there is even worse than NY, and I don’t know anyone there anymore. I go back once a year to visit Mom’s grave and have lunch with the cousins, and I always think of it as “going home.”
I moved to Philadelphia to start grad school in 2001. I never felt at home in my sublet, and never really with the roommates I had in my first “real” apartment, but once I moved in with my husband (then boyfriend), I felt at home right away and he did once he got used to living in Philly, which took about a year.
We bought a house in the suburbs about 3 years ago, and that felt like home as soon as we bought real furniture. At this point, we’re not leaving the Philadelphia area unless we absolutely have to.
Do you feel at home yet?
Yes.
How long have you been at your new home?
18 months.
Male or female?
Male
family or single?
Family
Where’d you move to and from?
3 miles away.
So what do you all do when you move, to settle in and start loving your new home that is?
Making changes to it and doing personal stuff sure helped the settling in process. We had the exterior and a number of interior rooms repainted. I had some trees cut down and new ones planted. We bought things to decorate, furniture, rugs, artwork, replaced the locks, etc. Having a party or two there really helps as well. As much as anything though, it’s gotta be my place because no way in heck I’m gonna edge, weedeat and mow someone else’s yard.
Interestingly, I’ve been think about this a lot lately.
Do you feel at home yet?
No, but the degree varies by the season. During the summer, I go through crushing homesickness because it’s too hot to do anything outdoors and the rest of the unwashed masses are clogging up the indoor venues. Finding something in Phoenix for the entire family to do, at a reasonable price, that isn’t prohibitively expensive is incredibly difficult.
Do you think you will?
At this point, probably not.
How long have you been at your new home?
I moved in January of 1998, and moved into my current place in February 2000
Male or female?
female
family or single?
family
Where’d you move to and from?
South Jersey to Phoenix, AZ
Anything else you think it worthwhile
I think a lot of my problem is that I live in the house that my husband bought with his ex, so I live in a house that’s “not mine” (our personal finances coupled with the horrible housing market don’t allow us to remedy this situation). When summer comes, I miss being able to drive 30 minutes to the shore or any other free things to do. Phoenix is literally and figuratively stifling me.
That’s got to be tough! I have been an East Coast girl all my life, and when I visited my sister in Tucson, I thought I would go mad. Not because of my sister, but the Southwest is just so *foreign *to me.
I move a lot, but it’s all in the same general geographic area since my job hasn’t moved. It generally takes me a couple weeks at the most to start feeling “at home” there. I absolutely, without fail, always hate the first couple nights in a new place. I feel homesick for my old bedroom, I miss the stuff that I liked about my old place, I hate unfamiliar sounds, and just feel uneasy in general. After a couple weeks, when I’ve gotten used to it, I start to like the new place better and it starts to feel more like home than the old one did.
I still remember the first day I moved into my current place. It was so cold outside, and the room had wooden floors (my first time ever living without carpet). I lay down on my air bed for a couple hours’ nap without putting a sheet down on it first. In my old place I would have been just fine, since it was warmer and better insulated (being carpeted, and on the second floor). But I woke up after a couple hours and I felt like a popsicle. Goddamn hypothermic. Which was weird and disorienting, because usually I’m a very hot sleeper. I cuddled with my teddy bear on the much-warmer corduroy living room couch after I woke up (since my roommate had gone out) and almost cried. It sucked! But now, I love it there and it’s the homiest place I’ve ever lived.
I could see the transitional period being much longer if I moved farther away. The way I’ve been living the past few years, I don’t have to get to know the general area all over again every time I move. That would be really hard.
Do you feel at home yet?
Only when it got “cold” down here last winter. Of course, that did not last for long at all so that feeling faded fast.
Do you think you will?
Not really. The climate and culture are pretty different from what I grew up with. The heat and lack of rain (in theory this is very abnormal for Austin but this has been my only summer here) is foreign to me. Also, people can tell I am not from around here as soon as I open my mouth.
How long have you been at your new home
9 months
Male or female?
Male
family or single?
Single
Where’d you move to and from?
I grew up in central New Jersey, went to school in Pittsburgh and lived at home in NJ for several months before moving down here to Austin.
I am not sure if having a roommate that grew up with me is adding to my inability to feel at home. She has the full on Jersey accent and attitude so it definitely serves as a daily reminder of, what I consider, home. It took a while for me to start getting out and meeting people so I know that did not help the situation. Still, the climate thing is one of the strangest parts for me. It is September and the days are getting somewhat shorter but its still 100 degrees out during the day. We moved in last December and I flew down in winter clothes and moved our furniture in shorts and t-shirt. That combined with the fact that my generation has a twisted fascination with ‘Jersey Shore’ means I will probably never really feel at home here. I am okay with that though, because Austin is a great city and I am enjoying myself in spite of the heat.
It’s odd because I felt so out of place in S. Jersey at the time (I take pride in being told that I don’t have a NJ accent), but I’ve never felt at home here. I can definitely appreciate the desert and its beauty, but I’m too poor to be able to live where I could actually appreciate it. Instead, I live on a street surrounded by rental houses.
I don’t mean to be so woe-is-me. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself a bit more than usual lately.
I’ve moved around a lot and find that it takes at least 1 year to feel at home. You need to have experienced the full cycle of events so that there isn’t much “new” any more.
Does anyone feel like “okay that’s it, I made a big mistake, I’m moving back”?
I moved from Anchorage, Alaska to Seattle almost a year ago (9/23/10 to be precise). I keep wondering how much of my homesickness is just because Anchorage was SO familiar to me? ( I lived there for 40 years).
…and how much of it is because I truly am homesick? My new job’s fine, my place is okay, there is no real problem with here. But I do miss Anchorage, and funnily enough, I NEVER thought I would.
I see from some of the other replies that I’m not alone in wondering if I did the right thing.
I grew up in the east of the Netherlands, in a region mostly considered beautiful. I spent my six college-years in a big city in the centre of the Netherlands. ON a vacation, I visited the town of Maastricht, way way in the most southern tip of the Netherlands. Visiting Maastricht was like falling in love. I actually started relationships with two guys in my college years because they both lived in Maastricht. Well, it wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big bonus.
I lived here in Maastricht for 16 years. When I divorced, I convinced my current husband to move from near Amsterdam to Maastricht.
Do you feel at home yet?
Yes. I like it here, even if it is a bit strange.
How long have you been at your new home
Five years.
Male or female?
Male.
family or single?
Single.
Where’d you move to and from?
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and then spent two years in Tucson. But I’ve always been a “mover.” Until Santa Barbara, I had never lived in the same place for more than two years since I turned eighteen.
I move frequently because of my job. Whether I feel at home or not varies by location: there have been places where I could eventually feel at home, others where I’m at home from day one, others where I would never have been at home. The key is whether the local culture and I are a good fit.