What moving across the country taught me
Moving is never easy. Packing all of the stuff you have accumulated over the years into compartmentalized boxes and transporting them to your new home takes a great deal of physical and mental energy.
I’ve moved a lot in my 40 years. Growing up in a single parent house with a mom who did the best she could, but often couldn’t find the ends that needed to meet, we moved — a lot. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I attended 5 different elementary schools, 3 middle schools, and 2 high schools.
When my husband bought our first house and settled in with our two girls for 9 whole years, I wasn’t sure what to think. What was life without a big move? Around year 7, I started to get antsy. The house was too small. The schools weren’t providing what I wanted for my girls. I wanted to move further into the country where we could have chickens and my oldest could twirl for her high school marching band. Little did I know that move would be a 2400 mile journey across the country.
In February 2016, the opportunity came that we simply couldn’t pass up and we moved from Columbus, Ohio to Seattle, Washington. I thought it would be a simple move. I’d done it before. I moved from Cincinnati to Athens to Columbus. I had started over in new places with new people so many times, it was almost second nature to me.
Moving across the country turned out to be an entirely different animal. Here are some things that I learned from that move.
1. People are pretty much the same wherever you go.
We all have our stuff and our own little idiosyncrasies, but, for the most part, people are people. There are extremely kind people and there are extremely rude people, though most fall more toward the kind and middle of that spectrum. What’s important to remember is that people will often treat you the way you treat them, so be kind.
2. Yes, Virginia — err, Ohio — you DO have an accent.
It’s a running joke in Ohio that there is no accent there. But we all have one. Silly little realization, but when you spend your life living around people who sound like you do, you notice the differences when you’re away.
3. The people who were there for you before will be there for you after — it will probably just look a little different.
We don’t see the people we love as much as we want anymore. We don’t have card nights with our besties. But, what we get now are combined family vacations each year, video calls on holidays, and tons of love spread across the country. When people have to work harder to be in your life, you quickly find who really wants to be there.
4. Hold onto real friends — they’re harder to find.
This I kind of recognized before, but it solidified more once we moved. With my girls no longer at playgroup ages, it became more challenging to find friends once we moved. But the ones we’ve really connected with, we hold onto. They’re rare gems no matter where you live.
5. Drivers suck everywhere!
It’s no secret that Seattle traffic makes Ohio traffic look light — what I wouldn’t give for a Columbus rush hour! But, just as people are people, drivers are drivers. Although, bad driving is a bit more amplified when there are three times as many drivers.
6. Dating Sucks!
There’s always that period with any new friendship where you’re ‘dating’, before you’ve decided if you’ll actually become friends with this stranger or not. That part is hard no matter where you live. Some people are better at it than others, and sometimes it’s easier to do. But, when you’re living in an area where you literally know no one save the people living in your home, that dating can feel almost like a desperate plea for human connection.
7. Home is where you make it.
This one took a while to realize. For the first year and a half of our move, I found myself wishing to go home every day. Some days, I still miss what we had — especially since no one in the PNW seems to have heard of soft serve ice cream and the wonders that are the Dairy Barns! — but the goal is to grow where you are planted. There are so many wonderful opportunities out here that we get to experience that we never would have if we had stayed in Ohio. We have chickens and my daughter is the majorette for her marching band.
8. But, finding food or activities that remind you of home, even if you detested them before, is pretty much the best thing ever!
I’ll never forget the first time we found sauerkraut at a grocery store out here. For months, we hunted and we settled on the small jars of less than stellar Bavarian kraut. It was all they had, so we made due. There isn’t exactly a booming German population in the area we lived like there was in Ohio. But, the day I found the bag in the grocery store of the town where we were planning to buy our house, I knew we belonged.
9. The embarrassing things about where you come from become sources of pride.
I probably say more now about how I’m a simple Midwesterner and I laugh at the “things Ohio people say” lists much more than I did when I was in Ohio. It was just a move across the country, but it feels like a cultural heritage that I want to hold onto and pass down.
10. Starting over is challenging, but it’s not impossible. And, it can be a very good thing.
This move was probably the hardest of my life. We were in our mid-30s with upper elementary and middle school children. We uprooted our entire lives and took us all away from everything we ever knew. We essentially had to start over. We had no friends. We had no support system. We had no backup plan. We just had us. And we survived it with our family intact. I think that is probably the one big takeaway that I have from this whole experience.
We survived it with our family in tact.
And now, we look toward the opportunities and the friends we’ve made along the journey. They’re not the same as the friends in Ohio, but those friends also took many years and many moves to find. In the meantime, I think we’re going to be okay. And I’m looking forward to seeing what else the journey brings.
