Love Where You Live

So 14 years ago, to the day, because I'm accurate like that; I moved from views like this:


to views like this:


From harsh, rich, historic ground to lush, plush, historic ground.

For 14 years now I've stuck to my belief that I pushed this move for the sake of my family. I believed they would have new futures, better lives and enjoy all the new area had to offer.  I think I was right, all of the males in my family have great careers, have developed friendships and relationships they wouldn't have made if we'd stayed put.

Pop back to the blog "What's in a Name?" if you haven't been following along and you'll see there's been a lot of soul searching going on. That soul searching has moved forward to last night laying alone thinking about the move here 14 years ago with children and teenagers, and analysing the real meaning of why I wanted to move.

This analysing must be healthy, for the first time since taking that second photo I've seen it has a rainbow in it.  Ooh, it's a sign!  OK it's a photo of a rainbow and I'm carried away with positivity.

I desperately wanted to move to regain a sense of happiness, purpose and excitement in my life. The feelings I had when I first saw that first landscape. It happened. Oh it happened in bucket loads. Then it stopped.  It stopped in both places. And my light bulb moment showed me why it happened.

Pop back along my memory route to 1983. I was a very stressed, distressed and unwell 17 year old desperate to leave the confines of my favourite narcissist.  I'll write about the physical and emotional way I was dealing with that soon I think. For my own benefit, and largely because the last 3 weeks have seen many of those things come back to me.

1983, absolutely desperate to leave where I lived and gain a sense of selfworth, self knowledge and to just feel happy.  Oh it was wonderful.  Spatterings of hideous stuff.  DAILY handwritten letters of longing and pleading and guilt wrangling would arrive. The first week or so I read them, was physically sick, and threw them out. After that I didn't open the envelope, I just threw them out. Gradually I made friends, I felt part of life and it was good.  Thrown into a carer role for a parent, supporting a husband, raising little boys, it was frantic. But for the most part happy.  

1996, roped and beguiled into doing the physical hard work of moving my big N to live near me!  Why????? Why would I do that to myself?  Hindsight is such a valuable tool.  I knew at the time it would be a disaster, but I was coerced into seeing this was the time it would work, this was the time normal relationship patterns would begin.  Wrong!  A decade later and at the end of my rope once again, I wanted to move.  This was a much bigger machine to move.

1983 - 3 suitcases and a size 14 seventeen year old girl.  Doddle! Piece of the Proverbial! 2005 - 5 males, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 semi-trailers. This was a Titanic move. But I felt it had to happen. Why???  Because happiness lay further away from this person. So, not only did I move my family away from their networks, something I feel guilt for to this day, but I took myself away from my home, my friends and my life.

How long did I get?  2 years. 2 miserable sodding years. Yes I felt all that excitement of new life again. I lost weight, got a new job, saw my kids meet and greet friends they have to this day. Do they have regrets? I doubt it. Me? I miss my old place with a physical pain.

And what happened after 2 years? Oh narcissism followed me.  Another vicious cycle of coercement, negativity, pain, drama and feeling like a prisoner in my own life. Until a change of condition meant it was no longer physically possible for them to come to my space.  Some control at last. It's taken 3 years to feel comfortable in my own house. How bizarre is that? I no longer think of the hiding spots I can go to where I can't be seen from a window. I don't put my phone on silent so it doesn't give me away, or train my dog to be silent when he hears a particular car or voice. Safety. Finally.

Then the anniversary of moving has rolled around. In the past two years I've looked at real estate sites on an almost daily basis. I've been to home opens, weighed up options and had my house valuated in readiness.  I did say to my nearest and dearest recently that it's not the house I don't like, it's how I live in it.

Anniversary contemplation of why we moved, why we built and why the hell aren't I happy in this place has been a powerful thought process.  I crave that happy, free and independent feeling I had when I moved at age 17. And I crave that excitement and positivity I felt when I moved the second time.  That's why I want to move again. But it's not actually the reason at all.  It wasn't where I moved that created those feelings. It was what I'd moved from. Who I'd moved from to be precise. Then they followed.  And until the day they make their permanent, shuffle from the mortal coil move, I am going to have to fight to feel happy and excited about where I am. Or keep checking real estate sites. We shall see.

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