I'm not quite ready to post my next chunk of research about the cities I might move to, mostly because I keep jumping from topic to topic. A little research about jobs here, a little research about demographics there, you know...
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| A tiny library in Minnesota, where I stopped to use the wifi back in July. |
But the research has made me a bit twitchy and I thought I'd share that instead today. I experienced this a few times while I was travelling, most memorably in Seattle and Savannah, where I got a really good first impression of the cities but was unable to stay long due to commitments to be in other places. And I thought to myself, with a twinge of panic, "Oh my gosh, is this the place for me, and I'm passing it up because of some schedule I don't really have to keep!?"
My research is making me feel that way a bit, too. Twitchy. Like, I planned things wrong. A lot of people would have done their research
before setting out on their trip (or at least more research than I did), instead of relying on the recommendations of friends, and then my own visits to judge whether I liked a place.
I seem to get this feeling more when I consider how disparate the cities are on my list are. Everything from sunny Denver to gloomy Chicago. And tiny little Asheville to enormous Los Angeles. My visits to each of the places and my research both reveal things I like about each city and things I don't like. And I wonder ... is there a place out there that has everything I like and little or nothing I don't like? And maybe I don't even know about that place?
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| What if there's a city out there with cooler creepy public art than Des Moines?! |
After reading my blog or listening to me talk about my trip, friends keep suggesting new places I'd like. Minneapolis comes up a lot, as does Seattle (see above) and Pittsburg and some other towns in the rust belt. All of these cities were mentioned over a year ago when people started offering suggestions. For various reasons I kept them off my list of audition cities, and now I'm feeling a bit of buyers' remorse. (If you're wondering, the reasons were: Too cold, too much like Portland, too much like Cleveland.)
It's not too late to visit some of these places. Pittsburg would be especially easy. Seattle would be harder. Savannah is somewhere in between in terms of difficulty of travel, although in the end I'd probably rule it out as too hot and too ... well, southern. But while I enjoyed traveling, and wouldn't be upset if I
had to travel some more, I'm ready to stay in one place for a while. And any more traveling under the guise of exploring more places to live will probably only make my choice harder, and will just delay the inevitable tasks of figuring out where I want to be and what I want to do.
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| Could this be my home for the next three months while I explore New England? |
This post was a bit of a ramble, but I wanted to include it because it's what's in my head these days. And to document that my search for a new place isn't all about the fun and travel and the follow-up research. But that there's also some second-guessing going on and feelings of inadequacy. Erm... don't feel sorry for me; I'm not overwhelmed by these thoughts. They are maybe 5-10% of what's on my mind when I think about the future. Not enough to make my think I totally F'd up. Maybe writing them down will get them under control. Back to work! (Me, not you.)
"Gloomy Chicago"? Denise did a double take on this one as well. I seem to recall it was hot and sunny when you were here. Don't give us Chicagoans a bad name , now. We have enough problems with Da Bears, Da Sox, Da Cubs, etc.
ReplyDeleteHehe. Check out my stats on rainy days and sunny days. Chicago is no LA in the sun department! (And having said that, I tend to like gloomy days more than sunny days.)
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, this kinda reminds me of our search for a new mattress last year. We looked at EVERYTHING, or at least tried to. It seemed like every time we thought we'd covered all our basses we'd find another mattress and have to track one down. By the end we decided on a Simmons Beauty Rest Black... and it's killing our backs! We kind of just overloaded, got overwhelmed, tired of looking and picked the one we got. Now we're regretting it (it was expensive too!).
ReplyDeleteAt some point soon we'll be getting a new mattress. We're pretty sure we know what we want as we just loved this mattress we slept on at the hotel we stayed at at Disney World. We plan on doing more price-comparison this time as opposed to mattress comparison, so we anticipate a bit less stress.
Options are great, but if you really try and cover EVERY option you're just going to drive yourself nuts. We didn't really look around much before choosing Asheville. We had looked at San Fransisco, but found it WAY too expensive. Then Heather saw an image of a hot-air balloon over some trees with mountains in the background and on MSN.com and looked into it. The photo was of Asheville. She looked further and found out it was basically just what we were looking for. Maybe that was just dumb luck, but I've found that "dumb luck" has a way of delivering just what you need when you need it. I love researching things to death, but in the end I usually just go with my gut :-)
"I love researching things to death, but in the end I usually just go with my gut :-)" Paul, that's exactly how I do things! It's how I'll do this project too. And I'm worried I'll wind up ignoring both my research and my gut and just allow myself to fall into something. For example, I suspect that Cleveland will be a finalist in terms of cities I do my job search in. But I want to actually CHOOSE Cleveland, not just wind up there because I happen to be there while I think about my future. Ya know?
ReplyDelete"And I'm worried I'll wind up ignoring both my research and my gut and just allow myself to fall into something."
ReplyDeleteThat's what happened with the mattress! We got to the end of our ropes and just felt like we had to choose something. The one we picked was one of the last ones we looked at. I think we were just burnt out on shopping. Part of the problem may have been that none of the mattresses we tried stood up and said "HEY! Right here; I'm the one!".
With Asheville, we found it, researched it then when we visited here, it just sort of said "Hi, welcome home!". There was a vibe and feeling here that just sort of hit us. Is it 100% everything I've ever wanted? No (there's no really nice guitar shops in the area for instance, but then again, I have very good taste ;-), but there's a certain comfort that this area provides that's hard to beat and all the basics I like are here. It's very hard to articulate and put in to words.