Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Jeanine N's avatar

"I wonder how other people reconcile feeling “stuck” somewhere? Is this you?"

YES! I moved to Washington DC for graduate school in 2009 (remember the heady days of the Great Recession?) I graduated college in 2008, moved home with my mother for a year, applied to graduate school like everyone else, moved to a city I could never afford even then, racked up six-figures of student loan debt, managed to finally get a decent job with the federal government in their largest cultural heritage institution, got married, bought a house in the suburbs, and have hated living here since the beginning.

This job I have, it is permanent and it is good work that I believe in. My coworkers are creative and smart, my managers particular but trusting. I could literally do this forever. But living here, especially the last few years, is becoming less and less tenable, spiritually. It is expensive, the traffic so bad that it snowed 8 inches and folks (even the Senator!) were stuck on the road for more than 24 hours, and the vibe...well the vibe has never been that good, but it's even worse now.

Over the holidays I went back to Michigan, where my husband and I are from and where our families mostly still live. It was cold and it was dark and it was quiet and it was so beautiful. My husband and I have a tradition when we drive home for the holidays that we spend a night just the two of us in the city we met, where we went to college. It is easily the most romantic thing we do. Every time we stay an extra night because it is one of those places where our souls clicks into place and we don't want that feeling to end. This trip was the first time that moving back home, to this city specifically, felt incredibly urgent. That *not* living there was wasting the most important parts of my life: my happiness, my family, a sense of peace and belonging I have never felt in DC.

I resent that at 22 I was made to feel that staying home was the wrong choice. That people like me moved to places like DC because we think we matter, that places like this are meant for people like me. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to go home.

Expand full comment
Antonia Malchik's avatar

It's funny, I mull over this a lot specifically because I lived in other places for 20 years and intentionally made a move back home. A lot of people around me have expressed stuckness feelings over the last couple years because it's hard to get away, but I feel fortunate in knowing that I *chose* to come back here.

It is getting increasingly hard in Whitefish, though it's long been a place where people with means earned elsewhere buy houses sight unseen. What I hold onto is the knowledge that people have been trying to run away and find something better for thousands of years. There's a niggling part of my mind that keeps dragging me to the less populated parts of eastern Montana recently, reminding me of its beauties and open space, but what happens when the planet hits 10 billion people, or 30? This is where I really try digging into "there is no way out but through, and together" because time will come when running away to live in a cabin in the woods isn't an option for anyone. I want to try to help understand what we're running away *from* and how to make it better.

Expand full comment
48 more comments...

No posts