don't panic....this isn't about me staying or leaving (although i keep on finding/getting interesting job offers in places other than philly - and of course that happens after i've found a great house in south philly)
this post is about rumblings i've heard from various people in my life over the past few months. it's the debate over whether to stay in the city you live (which has a mix of good and bad points, although when people are thinking about this debate tend to make the bad seem worse and the good seem pale in comparison) or move to another city (you know someone there who loves it; you've visited it and it seems so much better than ____).
now let me start by saying i am the biggest culprit of leaving a city that isn't all bad just because i couldn't stand the problems that kept nagging the city and never got solved, and seemed as though they never would. sure, the b-lo has its share of bad (friggin cold-n-snow, poor economy, inept people running things, environmental issues), but there's also good (my family, pleasant summers, lots of colleges/universities, low crime, low cost of living, close to toronto). the bad were driving me nuts, so i moved to philly with its own bad (high crime and murder rate, cost of living going up quickly, the attitude of the people who grew up here) and good (the boy was living here at the time, many diverse neighborhoods, access to lots of cultural things, close to nyc/dc/boston). so, i do understand the ideal of finding a better place to live, instead of trying to battle the things that you think are wrong with where you live now.
now, philly has its problems....big city problems, like crime. but it's also blue-collar, so you have things like corrupt government officials who give their brothers city contracts (cough-john street-cough). but i really like this city. i like what it has to offer to me. and i think i have much to offer it, so i'm willing to plant some roots here and fight for the things i think need change. and i hope others do to.
of course that doesn't mean that i won't live somewhere else someday (or at least make it to puerto rico every year), but it won't be because i think the grass might be greener somewhere else.
so, for all of you who don't live in the town you grew up in, why did you move and what makes you stay where you are? and if you're thinking about moving, what's the issue that made you fed up enough to move and what drove you to choose the place you're thinking of going to?
current mood: still slighty snuffly and coughy
current noise: "fortunate son" by ccr (and covered by john francis)
this post is about rumblings i've heard from various people in my life over the past few months. it's the debate over whether to stay in the city you live (which has a mix of good and bad points, although when people are thinking about this debate tend to make the bad seem worse and the good seem pale in comparison) or move to another city (you know someone there who loves it; you've visited it and it seems so much better than ____).
now let me start by saying i am the biggest culprit of leaving a city that isn't all bad just because i couldn't stand the problems that kept nagging the city and never got solved, and seemed as though they never would. sure, the b-lo has its share of bad (friggin cold-n-snow, poor economy, inept people running things, environmental issues), but there's also good (my family, pleasant summers, lots of colleges/universities, low crime, low cost of living, close to toronto). the bad were driving me nuts, so i moved to philly with its own bad (high crime and murder rate, cost of living going up quickly, the attitude of the people who grew up here) and good (the boy was living here at the time, many diverse neighborhoods, access to lots of cultural things, close to nyc/dc/boston). so, i do understand the ideal of finding a better place to live, instead of trying to battle the things that you think are wrong with where you live now.
now, philly has its problems....big city problems, like crime. but it's also blue-collar, so you have things like corrupt government officials who give their brothers city contracts (cough-john street-cough). but i really like this city. i like what it has to offer to me. and i think i have much to offer it, so i'm willing to plant some roots here and fight for the things i think need change. and i hope others do to.
of course that doesn't mean that i won't live somewhere else someday (or at least make it to puerto rico every year), but it won't be because i think the grass might be greener somewhere else.
so, for all of you who don't live in the town you grew up in, why did you move and what makes you stay where you are? and if you're thinking about moving, what's the issue that made you fed up enough to move and what drove you to choose the place you're thinking of going to?
current mood: still slighty snuffly and coughy
current noise: "fortunate son" by ccr (and covered by john francis)
Its Angie,
Ms.Bec its kind of kind of funny you'd bring that topic up of whether to stay or leave this city.
I've been actually debating on whether to stay here or go back to Austrailia with Mekah when she comes here. I was finding before I'd much rather leave this city but I thought about its great points last night and ..I...actually wanna stay here. Cant believe it but I do
Now, I'm scared to ask Mekah to stay with me in Philly altho I know she has no obligations back home to hold her back, I do here. I'm not scared that she wont understand, thats partly why I love her because she understands everything I go through or about me besides my obligations because first main goal is to be with her I do think we'd be better off here, it'd make more sense. I thought about it. It would be eaiser for me to take care of us then for to take of us.
I'd open up a banking account, I plan to get a job soon so when I open I'd save enough money for us to get an apartment here and there I'd have wait two years to do anything, till I'm a legal citizen there. That would mean putting my education on the back burner and I just dont know anything about Austrailia. I guess I've realized I need to study up. Tho I dont know everything about this city this hometown as crazy and as wild as it is I have to admitt, its familiar, its what I know.
I dont know.
Maybe I sound selfish, I'm just not sure but I'd love it if she said she'd stay here.
I guess I have alot of talking to do with her ...better get started.
Oh man, Angie--consider all of your options. Living abroad changes your entire world. And you're young and you have so many more options than you can even fathom at this point in your life. And you don't have to give up education to move abroad. You'd be surprised the things you can do in the time before gaining citizenship, too. Explore the possibilities when you two talk! Be honest, and be open. Wow...I'm so jealous that you even have the option to consider. ;) Sorry to reply to a tangent of a tangent or something. Hi Rebecca!
I stay where I am out of obligation, I think. Realistically, even with our debt, we could find a way to go somewhere else. But I know Sarah wants to stay for the moment, and I'm not sure enough about anything to force any part of the issue. I don't feel right, though. I'm comfortable in Philly--I know this place (at least my corner of it) pretty well, and it would be hard to give up the convenience of knowing somewhere. But now that I think about it, I remember feeling exactly this way when I had to leave Cork. What sticks in my head is this older gentleman who ran a newsagent where I'd sometimes stop to get top-ups for my mobile (I bought a pint of milk there in my last hour in Cork). He was a comfort to me--seeing him there every single time I passed by. And I wondered what would happen in his life when I was gone. I swore I'd be back there in no time. But here it is almost four years later, and I've not left the continent since.
As far as wanting to leave goes, well, I don't feel like I'm a Philly person. The city is familiar, but not home, you know? I don't feel a pull to be here in any otherly sense. Mostly though, I feel like I've a wandering spirit. Do you listen to Dar Williams at all? Her song 'Closer to Me' has been my anthem this year in a lot of ways. At first, it was this powerful reminder of this intense desire I have to go everywhere and find myself in all these places. And as the year has progressed, it's become an even stronger reminder of how much time I'm wasting in one place finding nothing of myself at all. Sitting still, I feel wasted and sad and incomplete, in a sense, you know? I don't even *travel*. There's so much more of me to find in the world. Why isn't any (more) of it here?
Wow...that was a bit more than I planned to write. Sorry. :P
holy crap, this was more than i expected.
let me say that i understand the urge of wanderlust. there's so many places i want to see sometime in my life (japan, a drive down the west coast, south america, russia, and puerto rico many times again), but i like the idea of having a homebase i can come back to, no matter where i roam.
and philly is that place. although, would i say that if i didn't have this fab house now? hmmm....