Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Was it good for you?

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:21 / 12.10.04

Wondering how people feel about moves they've made. Specifically long distance, life changing moves. I moved to London from Los Angeles just over 5 years ago and am contemplating it all. So how do you feel? Glad you did it? Pining away for your homeland? Do you notice vast changes in your headspace? Tell me more and compare.

06:03 / 12.10.04

I have always enjoyed the act of chucking it all and moving to a new place. I couldn't wait to get out of the town I grew up in, and I found the experience of leaving so liberating that I was averaging a new city/state every year for about a decade. I'm "settled down" now, but I still get the itch to throw everything in the back of a car and start anew. I started a thread a while ago asking about Canada since it's looking like the next destination.

I've always liked being able to introduce myself to a new place. There's a feeling of freedom knowing that noone could possibly have an opinion about me. I enjoy the feeling of being a tabula rasa.

Lilly Nowhere Late

06:20 / 12.10.04

Indeed, I totally agree with all that. I've done it myself a few times in my silly little life, and really, it is the best thing. Especially when young and jaded. But how do you feel now in the "settled down" part? Are you glad to have landed where you have? Can you love life so much now that you can deny the urge to go again?

06:58 / 12.10.04

Nah, I hate where I'm at right now- exactly the wrong climate, zero culture to speak of. Just on the other side of the mountains, however...

At this point any move would require a massive uprooting and a paring down of all the lovely stuff I've collected. It's gonna happen, I just have to figure out how to do it in the least painful way possible. I don't actually own real estate so I'm not tied to the land in and metaphysical sense, but when I do get my hands on a deed, barring major unforseen situations, I'll probably not move again.

Lilly Nowhere Late

08:37 / 12.10.04

Et vous? et vous, et vous, et vous?

09:03 / 12.10.04

Moving always has its good and bad points. I like being in a new place, with lots to explore, different people to meet and the total break of routine. But at the same time I'd find leaving where I am now pretty tough. Will the place I move to have a nice, independent bookshop that serves free coffee and acts as a social centre? How long is it going to take me to learn the layout of the city again? Can I really leave all those small, cozy restaurants and pubs where the staff know me by name behind? The tearing yourself away is the hardest.

The most frustrating is opening your boxes at the other end of the move and finding out that the reason the relocation company was so cheap was that they used one sheet of A4 to pad your crockery. And then you think some music'll calm you down and realise that your stereo was kept by one of the customs agents as an informal 'import tax'.

09:14 / 12.10.04

I think I can safely say that my move to the UK has gone well. I came here from Sydney on 1st May 2001, intending to see as much as I could of the country, with a few side trips to Europe, and planning to live here for at least a couple of years if not more. I was quite open to the idea of staying permanently if life happened to go that way, but was also quite happy to go back home too.

Well, I'm still here. Not only have I not been back home to visit yet (I kept putting it off because I was waiting for my brother to set his wedding date, which has since been revealed as May 2005), but I have decided to settle here permanently.

I loved it here from the beginning. I've loved every city I've lived in (London, Glasgow, Manchester and Edinburgh), and have travelled to just about every place on my list in the UK and Europe. I've just bought a flat in Edinburgh with my partner, and we plan to settle in for the next few years at least. Edinburgh has everything I want in a city so at this stage I would say that I could quite easily stay here permanently, but at the same time I love new places so if Ariadne told me that she wanted to move to Dublin or Paris or Orkney then I'd probably say yes. The fact that we don't have kids gives us a degree of freedom in that respect.

Sydney is also a fun place to live, and if I was rich I would probably spend a couple of months there each year. I would especially love to see more of Australia, which is something I didn't do before leaving, not knowing at the time that I wouldn't be back. At some point I hope to spend a few months there travelling about.

So, how about you Lilly? How does London look to you after 5 years? Tell us more!

11:07 / 12.10.04

Wherein I try to express my discombobulation.

Lilly Nowhere Late

20:11 / 12.10.04

Well yes exactly. Can I just say "Q" for now? "Q", I think I grew up in a place similar to your current home. I've moved a lot, but specifically five life changing times. It makes my head reel. It makes me feel like everyone looks like someone I've known somewhere. It makes me homesick(volunteer fire crews and all)(I don't think we had cesspools, but did have septic tanks).
Now what I find is that I'm really really rooting myself to London just a little bit more than quite against my will or good judgement. I don't hate London, I don't love it. But here I am and it's getting more permanent by the day. What's more, there really isn't another choice which wouldn't cause some serious problems in all areas for other people. So I'm trying to come to terms with it all and get on, prosper and perservere and all that malarkey. What made me ask the questions, is that I don't see myself moving again for quite a long time, 15-20 years or so, and that in itself makes me want to run(not walk) to the nearest airport. Perhaps I'm just addicted to moving? Perhaps I'll never be good at being bonded to a place.
Someone tempt me...to stay or leave?

20:39 / 12.10.04

I moved to the US two years ago and I'm now moving back (in three weeks, actually).

I've droned on about the experience at tedious length on my blog, but basically I never really felt a connection here. Mostly, I think, to do with my job - tedious, out in an office park in the suburbs, no social activity, everybody goes home to give the kids their dinner after work, only given monkey work for over a year - and the environment - living close to work, no car, no real social contact (apart from the few lovely people from the lith and elsewhere that I've met up with).

I dare say if I'd moved to a proper city environment and had social outlets I'd feel less isolated and crap but it's too late now. Feeling discontented and isolated when I left London didn't help much either. It's probably my attitude that's to blame for a lot of it.

Certain of the differences between the US and UK made things worse, but certain of them were interesting too and kept me going. I definitely wouldn't blame the actual culture for anything, apart maybe from the suburban car culture and lack of organic social spaces, but that's an aspect of the area.

21:37 / 12.10.04

i just moved to the l.a. area two months ago from chicago. l.a. is weird and scary. i like driving but i hate traffic and paying for gas. you can't sing on public transit, or at least, you shouldn't, and i didn't, and won't. everyone is in the Business or knows at least two people who are in some way. i miss the rain. most of all, i miss my friends SO FUCKING MUCH IT'S INCREDIBLE, I MEAN EVERY DAY. especially my sister. i've met some great people here, though. and there's lots of fun stuff to do. chicago had that, though. but in chicago, i couldn't see a slice of ocean from my bed. yeah, i don't think i'm going to live here forever. people say everyone hates it their first year. i say, WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THAT FIRST YEAR? you...are...assimillated...or what? i don't want to get too used to the weather, i don't want to be spoiled so i have to live here the rest of my days. i think in the winter i'll go down to the beach at night in shorts and a tank top to remember what cold feels like. yeah. < /stream of consciousness>

Lilly Nowhere Late

06:35 / 13.10.04

Los Angeles was one of my big moves. I went from Atlanta GA to open a business for my then boss. I moved straight to Pasadena and was joined a couple of months later by my then spouse. I felt a bit out of sorts without doubt, but I really loved the feeling. I did miss friends, and for the first bit I missed my partner a lot. But I did submerse immediately into the perfect climate and had a palpable feeling of well being pretty quick. I loved the big San Gabriel mountain range which always pointed me North and the ocean which usually pointed me south or west. I loved the fact that because every other person was in the "business", all pretense was lost. I loved that if I went too far east, I would be in the desert. I loved the gritty citty bits and the villagey town bits near me. I loved loved loved the big views of the whole sprawl of LA and I loved the sunshine. I had some very hard experiences in my time there, but I always felt warmed and loved by the city itself. When I was later extracted gently and moved to London, I pined and pined for LA. I still do to some extent. I wish I could lead a personal tour of my favourite places in LA for everyone who lives there and doesn't get it. And there's still a house there, in Altadena, which I swear to buy back as soon as I'm filthy rich.
Yeah, end the stream of C, and forgive my little outburst here.

No star here laces

07:10 / 13.10.04

One of my formative experiences wrt moving home was a girlfriend I had aged 17, when I was living in the US. After I left to go home to britain, we kept in touch. Every 6 months she used to up and move to a new town in a new part of the country because things weren't working out for her. She'd start over with new friends, and a new job and then the same old issues would come back to haunt her and six months later she'd be off again.

This left me with a very strong conviction that it doesn't really matter where you live.

Having said that, I left London a year ago to address certain very specific issues in my life. I wanted to detach myself from a lifestyle and a social circle that had led to spiralling drug use and general anhedonia. I had a need for a sense of change and progress and excitement. I had a need to be very far away from my ex.

So I moved to singapore where spiralling drug use is a practical impossibility, and which is about as far from London as you can get, culturally and physically.

And yeah, it's done all the things I wanted it to. I've even given up cigarettes. I have more money and more free time. I'm more self-reliant. I have more pairs of trainers. I get laid a lot. I go to lots of exciting places. So I was wrong about moving locations - sometimes it can cause change.

But at the same time it's kind of unsatisfying - there isn't anybody to share it with. I have friends here, good friends, but I don't have a network and an environment like I had in London, I don't have people around who've known me for over half my life.

I find it a very hollow existence being this far away. I will go back. Unfortunately for tax reasons this can't happen for a while...

11:03 / 17.10.04

Well, I moved recently(as of around July 23rd) from Birmingham, Alabama to Brooklyn, NY then, effective today, moved from Brooklyn, NY to a town about 40 miles east of Brooklyn in Jersey. I feel that this qualifies me at least in some small way to evaluate the whole radical change/moving thing.

Overall, I'd say my opinion is mixed. On the one hand, there is a whole lot more "stuff" in this area of the world. More people, more things to do, etc,etc.

However, life is not quite as, well, relaxed as it once was. Allow me to illustrate the difference by giving an "as brief as possible" synopisis of an average day back home in Birmingham.

Get up at around 8AM or so, go to work, zipping around the pathetic excuse for traffic with no difficulty. Get to work, have breakfast, grumble about not having that many calls and how I have to work this weekend. Leave at around six, go home, get a call from my smoking friend. He invites me over because he, as usual, overcooked and needs someone to help eat it before it rots. We smoke, eat, watch either some very bizzare art flick or something out of Hong Kong, I wobble my way home, post in my LJ and go to bed. Variations on this involve driving the one mile for a good veggie burger, going to the dharma center on Tuesdays, and grumbling about my incapability of finding a date.

Now, as this post is already running long, I won't do the same "day in the life" for my new life, let's just say there is no smoking, no boon companion, currently no bed, no dharma center, well, you get the idea.

But, there is lots of promise, so that's a start.

James

13:09 / 17.10.04

I moved from Albany, New York's frozen concrete pretend capital, to the Research Triangle in North Carolina, and it's one of the best things I've ever ever done. I was born in Tennessee, but my family moved up north before I started remembering anything, but I still feel so much more at home here than I did in New York. Better weather, nicer people, better arts community, a thousand times et cetera. As far as I'm concerned, I am done with the north, and hope never to live anyplace north of Virginia again, unless it's Denmark.

14:16 / 17.10.04

I've moved somewhere new at least every two years since I was sixteen. Now because of work I spend extended shor periods living in different places. This past year has seen four months in London, two months in Montreal, a month in Denmark, a month in Paris (but spread) and various other trips round Europe. Next stop LA.

A couple of years ago if I had to write down my dream lifestyle this would be pretty damn near it. Getting paid to travel, work a cool job and bash the expense account.

The downside is constantly having to deal with the downside of moving to a new place. You turn up knowing no one. Hotels, even the really nice ones, are essentially a bedsit with laundry and room service. So, at worst, you are living in a nice bedsit and enitrely on your own.

Not sure how on topic that is but, hey, it good to talk about me.

17:12 / 17.10.04

I just moved to Manchester a while ago. I keep meeting people who are either from Manchester (or long-term residents) or Londoners who rhapsodise at length about the wonders of this dirty, rainy city. Excuse me....
I am quite homesick.
There's nothing truly special about Dublin either. It's quite dirty and rainy too, although I am thoroughly surprised to find a place both dirtier and rainier and I don't mean surprised in a puppy-for-Christmas kind of way. Yeah, Dublin's no great shakes in and of itself. It's just that I lived there, I belonged there. I've spent the past 13 years of my life learning the city until it wasn't even a question of *knowing* it. The concious mechanism of knowing a place is mostly unecessary to me when I am in the parts of Dublin that I grew up in. It feels instinctual, viral, the city moves through me as well as me moving through it. And I miss that so much, I can't begin to explain. I feel so bad about this too. Obviously there must be something about my new "home" that drives people to go on about it at length, with such warmth. I just can't click into that right now. I can sense a vibe, a willingness to party and have fun and believe me, I can only hope that vibe comes in from the margins of my senses. I am pretty sure that in this botched lover's tiff it is mainly me, and not Manchester, who is to blame. But frankly if I meet another Londoner who exclaims over how friendly everyone is here I may throw up. I truly pity London dwellers if this is their best experience of a 'friendly city'.
Ugh. I'm sorry. This is potentially very insulting. Forgive me, I'm lost and I miss the sea. I

Lilly Nowhere Late

07:45 / 18.10.04

ah yes, the sea.
My sympathies for the longing.

This is I think a lot about what I was getting at. The absolute attatchment to and ability to mourn leaving a place.

The overwhelming oddity of being lost.

Still, life is rife with adventure and if humans deny the range of transient capabilities that lurk inside, the stagnation is far worse I imagine.