June Updates

Hello everyone,

I realise it’s been awhile since I updated this blog, for which I apologise. It actually has not gone unthought of in recent weeks though. I have wanted to post things here, but of course, as always, life gets in the way. Jon and I travel a lot which doesn’t do much for having time to blog, and then of course I don’t always feel in the mood when I do have time. Anyway, here we are.

It is now June and I have been in the United States for just over eight months now. I feel more settled than I did when I wrote about my feelings a awhile back, but there are still things that bug me sometimes.

One of the biggest problems for me right now is feeling a little disconnected from everything. I still don’t really feel as though the town where we live is my “forever home”. Last night I was having a conversation with Jon about where we really want to be living, and honestly, there was no real definite answer from either of us. I’m thirty now, and Jon is forty-one, and while we aren’t old, we are getting to the point in our lives where I personally think we should be considering where we want to be and where we want to settle permanently. I don’t mean moving out of the US again; heck it took enough to get me here. But do we really belong here, in Maryland? The United States is so vast, and so diverse, it’s pretty daunting to ponder.

Some of our thoughts were the West Coast, in particular California. With that comes innumerable problems, including drought, earthquakes and it being significantly further away from family and friends. On the plus side, they have the good weather and Disneyland - one of our favourite places - is right there. Oregon and Washington are pretty and offer a more laid back lifestyle, and Jon said he loves Seattle, but they are even further away from anywhere else, and the weather in those northern regions is colder than my ideal climate. We don’t really want to live anywhere in the Midwest. I’d be bored senseless without the coastline attractions and the ease of access to other places (ok, I know there are roads and airports, but living in the middle of no where Nebraska or Wyoming doesn’t really appeal as much as northern California, for example). Then we come to the East Coast. Boston and New England are very pretty and are well connected to the other major East Coast cities, but the winters can be harsh. The Carolinas and Georgia don’t really appeal to us, but then we come to Florida. The Sunshine State. Walt Disney World and many other attractions close by, the weather. Sounds perfect for us, right? Well, when the weather is close to 40C in July and August and the humidity is over 80 or 90%, it doesn’t sound so appealing. Mix into that hurricane season and the potential for flooding due to global warming, and we are back at square one.

So, with few natural disasters, and the not-quite-so extremes in weather, and being close to many places on the East Coast (including DC, Philly, Hershey, New York and Baltimore, to name but a few), Maryland seems to be the logical place to stay. We wouldn’t need to move far; we’re already here. But does that mean we want to live here? That’s the million dollar question. And we go around in circles looking at the options all over again.

Moving to another country was hard, but only because bureaucracy made it hard. Finding somewhere to live forever, where we’ll be happy, that’s much harder.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dan.