5 Things We Gained From Moving Across the Country
Recently, I finished up a photo album from our time living, working, and going to school in the Appalachian mountains. For almost five years, we lived 900 miles away from our home town, relying on ourselves and each other. Looking back, it must have seemed kind of random (though we went for a very specific graduate program), but truly, moving across the country made sense for our development as individuals and as a couple. We had to see what we could accomplish independent from the familiar support and distractions. We had to see what life looked like when it was just us.
We learned a lot, and I’m so grateful for the experience — the work, the education, the obstacles, the decisions. All of it. If you ever get the chance to stretch yourself beyond the familiar, do it. You won’t be disappointed.
This is the wisdom we walked away with:
1. Traveling is Life. Life is traveling. Nothing represents life like travel. If you can learn to be a good traveler, your life will be more satisfying. Why? Because traveling gives you practice with a lot of important life skills: planning, patience, order, paperwork, spontaneity, loss, meeting new people, miscommunication, budgeting, asking for help, flexibility, interest in other people/cultures, assertiveness, openness, self-awareness, and appreciation for both independence and the buddy system.
I’ve realized over the years that becoming a good traveler is somewhat of a coming-of-age task in our family, whether that means having a good attitude in an unending string of rural antique stores at the age of 13 in August or not panicking when your bank card information is stolen while living in Europe. Traveling makes all the usual inconveniences of life more familiar and easier to handle.
2. The importance of making your space into a home. This is an art, and whoever doesn’t think homemaking is an art, doesn’t know what they’re missing. We are constantly adjusting to the stimuli in our environment, good or bad, so the way we set up spaces has an impact.
But what does it mean to create a home? Everyone has different preferences so there isn’t anything too specific; it really just means you’ve created a shared space (rather than a rooming space) that engages all the senses. Whenever our space starts to get too out of control, I recognize that it’s all about the senses. The space is too crowded and overflowing (touch); the light is too dim (sight); the television is blaring (sound); and the trash is too full (smell). A few sensory-specific adjustments and things turn around quickly.
After years of roommates and dorm-like living, creating a home is refreshing. A home makes you want to sit down and have a good meal — and I think we can all agree, dorm living does not.
3. How to establish work-life balance. We had no work-life balance during our time in the mountains. With student loan debt and general cost of living, we worked whenever we weren’t in class. There was no “weekend.” There was no day of rest. After graduation, my real job included crisis work and I had to be “on” at home. The day I left that job for a position with better hours, I turned my phone on vibrate and have not turned the ringer on since.
Living across the country meant we had to calculate our vacation days down to the hour, leave as soon as work ended, drive through nights, spend 2-4 of those vacation days on the road, and never feel like we actually had a vacation.
All of it made us decide on what we really felt was important in life and, for us, time spent with family far outweighs money.
4. A love of wine and good food. No matter where you find yourself, there is always the fun of trying new wines and finding favorite eateries — and in our world that means pizza, Mexican, and diners. Those are the priorities.
When we first moved away, we were too broke to do much on the weekends so we started “Friday Night Cheese Night,” which consisted of cutting up a block of cheese or making queso and buying a 2-liter bottle of cheap red. By the end of the five years, things had evolved (meaning we could afford to go out for Mexican and come home to a $14 regular-sized bottle of wine). Sometimes, though, we still find ourselves getting out some wine and cheese and just sitting around the table like old times.
5. There’s never any reason to feel stuck. You will from time to time, but pay attention to those feelings; you have more control than you think. We learned it isn’t worth it to remain in a job, a city, a relationship, a career or a life path that isn’t fulfilling. It can all be undone no matter how engrained; you may have to stick it out for a time to get organized, but every step you take forward will free you more and more from that feeling of stagnation. It’s always worth the temporary headache. Humans are wired for change. You don’t have to stay. Don’t leave yourself wondering, Maybe if I had done that… If I had only taken that job… I always wanted to….
A wise teacher once told our class, “Live longer, see more,” in response to a student’s assertion that he had it all figured out. She was right. If you think you’ve done it all and you couldn’t possibly do more, you’re grown up, you’ve lived your life, you know the ways of the world, you’ve arrived at your destination — well, live longer and see more, my friend.
Push your boundaries, stretch the limits of what you think life should look like and who you think you are.
