I’ve lived quite a few places in my life, each of them uniquely special with little in common. From Colorado to Oklahoma, Dublin to New Jersey. There are wonderful things about each.
Notice, though, that Florida (where I’ve spent the majority of my adult life) isn’t on that list. Because while there are some really nice things about Florida and I loved visiting my grandparents there as a child, it was never my favorite place to live. I never really felt at peace there. I never found my people or my place. It was just where we needed to be to survive, and ultimately thrive, at that time.
Colorado will always be “home” to me. It’s the place where I spent my entire childhood, birth through high school graduation. It’s where my family has always been and where many of my life-long friends have been, and many still are. There is so much I still love about my Colorado home, despite not having really lived there for the past 16 years.
Oklahoma was my first dose of adulthood. Fresh out of college, my then boyfriend (now husband) took a giant risk and moved some place we knew very little about after he got into grad school out there. We spent two years doing the on-our-own thing, barely making ends meet. But happy because we felt at peace there. Life was uncomplicated, people were nice and I would not hesitate to move back there to raise my family.
Dublin was where I found my “people.” The only time in my adult life that I had a solid group of friends that I hung out with regularly, even without the kids, and where I felt like me and not just someone’s mommy. I loved everything about living in Dublin and every time we go back to visit, it feels easy and familiar, like we never left.
Moving back to Florida six years ago was a temporary solution to a lot of life ahead of us. We wanted to back in the states and closer to family and Florida was the option we had at that time. But it did not take much discussion or convincing at all when the opportunity finally came to get out of Florida for good (hopefully.)
And while moving four kids and all the things they require and treasures we’ve collected over the past 16 years together wasn’t an easy task, it’s been worth it.
Because, you guys, this place is amazing.
I had no idea when to expect when we decided to move our family to New Jersey. My life experience with the state previously involved passing through Newark airport on occasion and coming to one wedding (after which we went into New York City, not spending any real time in New Jersey.)
And I’ll admit that my expectations before making this move of life in New Jersey was solely based on a mix of Jersey Shore and Real Housewives. I was genuinely worried that I wouldn’t fit in. That my Target clothes, bitten nails and tied up, un-dyed and rarely cut hair would prevent me from fitting in.
But I should have known with the diversity of the largest city in the country a mere few miles away that we’d find a place to fit. And we have.
We were welcomed into a homeschool book club the first month we were here. Sugarplum was welcomed warmly onto her new gymnastics team. In the few weeks that we’ve lived in our house, multiple neighbors have made it a point to come introduce themselves and welcome us.
Everyone we meet is friendly and kind, interested in where we came from and extremely inviting. We’ve been offered more help and suggestions about the area more than we could have ever asked for. And driving here is a thousand times less stressful than in Florida (our native New Jerseyan neighbor in Florida warned me of this before we left!)
We picked a small town, close to the gym, and with an easy commute for hubby to get into the city for work. It is the perfect mix of American conveniences and everything we loved about being in our little village in Dublin–everything we need close by but the adventures of the city within reach.
But it’s not just the people and the conveniences and the opportunities that makes life here so wonderful. I am constantly amazed by the natural beauty, history, diversity and harmony that surrounds us.
We are less than 10 minutes from the Hudson River where we can peer across to the hustle and bustle of New York City, yet we constantly see deer wandering around. And we’ve heard about turkeys that parade down our street in the fall. And there is a groundhog living in our backyard!
Our house was built in the 1930s and many of our neighbors’ homes are decades and even centuries older than that (we regularly pass a house that was built in 1765!) Coming from a place where anything more than 50 years old is torn down and rebuilt, the history here, and the way it is preserved and treasured, is glorious. I drive through the little towns and have stars in my eyes over the beautiful historic homes that are not only still lived in, but are loved and maintained. They are not eyesores of a by-gone era, they’re treasures of a place with a long history.
I’ll admit that one of the hardest parts about this move has been constantly feeling out of our element. There is not a single drive through restaurant in our town but it, and the area where our apartment was, and all the towns in between are filled with Asian, Italian, and Latin fare. Want a burger, though? You’ll have to drive to one of the bigger surrounding towns. And you better hone up on your parallel parking because prime property is not given to large parking lots around here! And while we’ve had our moments where we just wanted something easy and familiar, we love the options available here. We love supporting our neighbors instead of national corporations and look forward to continuing to meet people with varying backgrounds.
Everything just feels easy here (most of the time). I’ve watched my kids struggle at times, but they’ve also blossomed in ways I couldn’t have imagined. They’ve embraced the change as well as I could have asked for and, thankfully, not held grudges against hubby and I for making the move.
I think we’re all going to be very happy here.
