Hi there! If you follow this blog (I’m not entirely convinced people actually follow blogs) then you might have read my September to-do list. And if you read that list, then you would know that my life is hectic right now.
I mentioned it about a dozen times just in that one post but I wasn’t able to elaborate too much because of the logistics of all the things that are going on. Well, here is the big thing, the giant thing, the massive… Okay, I’ll stop!
We are moving halfway across the country, 1000 miles, 16 hours of driving away, to Texas!
I thought this presented a really great opportunity to talk about a ton of things on this blog in particular. One of them being, obviously, relocating. The entire process from deciding on relocating to finding a moving company to how we picked Texas to buying or renting a house. Then, there’s finding a house in a city you’ve never been to and then once we’re in our new house there’s decor and repairs and whatever else!
While we have all of those great opportunities coming up, I wanted to talk about why we made the decision to relocate, first and foremost. I don’t think that relocation is right for everyone, I really don’t. I think staying in the same region that you were born works brilliantly for some people, but not for me.
I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A few small towns (a town called Big Lake, because it had a big lake…), but mostly right outside the city limits, and for some time in the city itself.
Growing up, we moved a lot. I’d moved thirteen times before I was thirteen years old, and I remembered most of those moves. I went to five different elementary schools. I had lived in houses, apartments, townhomes, you name it. We’d lived with roommates, with family, on our own.
My mom knew from when she was very young, that Florida was her home. Everyone tells me that. So, when she had the opportunity, she moved across the country from Minnesota to Florida. I think we moved in September of 2005, so over fourteen years ago now.
I was in fourth grade and I was so angry at my mom for taking me away from my home. I didn’t really identify any one city or physical property as my home, but the state of Minnesota, the areas around Minneapolis, the place where my family was, that was home. I got to go back a few times as the years passed but each time I was reminded that Florida is not my home. I have never, in my life, felt at home in Florida. (Maybe Disney, but that’s a different kind of belonging and kinship.)
I have these diaries from when I was a young teenager and in them I go on and on about how much I dislike living in Florida and how when I get the chance, I’m going to move far, far, far away. I have a table in one of the journals of why Eduardo and I couldn’t be boyfriend and girlfriend, and one of the reasons was, “I’m getting out of Florida and Eduardo will never leave.”
Having a family, raising kids, here in Florida is not my vision for the future. Everywhere you live, you’re going to have things that you like and things that you don’t like about the area, the neighborhood ratings, the amenities of your community, but at the end of the day, if I’m unhappy where I’m living, there’s not much that can make that change. I tried, for years, to make myself happy with Florida. I tried to convince myself that leaving would be stupid. Eduardo and I talked about relocation in the most abstract of terms.
Until finally, I cracked. Some years ago, Eduardo and I talked about how much I want to get out of Florida, about how much I hate the idea of Florida being the place where I live, forever. He agreed that relocating would be a great option. But years later, we’re still in the same place and nothing has really changed.
Eduardo lived in the same house practically his entire life, his parents purchased their home in the early two-thousands. We moved into our home about a year and a half ago but we were only ten minutes away from our parents. Committing to moving to another state is a big decision but I wasn’t really sure about what was going to happen with our future if he couldn’t see where I was coming from in my quest to build a life anywhere that wasn’t Florida.
Once we discussed it, weighed pros and cons, and came to the final conclusion that relocating was something we can absolutely do, everything moved really fast.
Everything seems to be happening all at once and while I’m so excited to move to Texas, this whole process is overwhelming! I want to share what we’re going through because I haven’t been able to find all that many resources during my own research and I hope that I’m able to help someone along the way!
So, I’m still doing my regular goal-planning posts, because that’s something that keeps me accountable and I love doing it, but I’ll also be posting about the relocating process. Do you have any questions that I might be able to answer? Have you ever moved across the country? Do you want to move across the country? Let me know in the comments of this post!
Until next time – Xx
Team Santana 