The honeymoon’s over folks! At least, that’s how Christine feels about Arizona. We’ve been living here for two and a half years now and, for her, the absence of the friends, family and culture of Chicago are really weighing down on her. She’s had the chance, so far, to write to all her friends and say how she’s been feeling. I usually don’t feel the compulsion to blurt out my feelings; then again, I don’t have a great deal of heavy feeling on the subject. However, I did tell her to tell the friends that I’ll be writing my thoughts on the subject in this blog for everyone to see.

Well, when we first moved out here, I made the conscious choice to make this work whatever the cost. I initially wasn’t happy with the prospect of moving away from the family and friends I had left in Chicago. Christine really, REALLY wanted to move out here and I took on the role of supportive husband, no matter what my misgivings were. If she wasn’t going to be happy staying in Chi-town, I wouldn’t be happy because of her misery. So, I got a transfer with my work, she planned out the move, and in October of 2003 we made the move.

She had two good reasons for the move: Health (her asthma was the big concern) and family (her parents moved out here a year earlier). Other smaller reasons were prevalent, such as weather. She was sick of snow, which I don’t mind and I actually like.

Zoom to present day. She now wants to move back to the Chicago area. Unfortuanely, I’m the type of person that can make their home anywhere. I’ve grown to like it here, except for the harsh summers; between that and Chicago winters, you just can’t win! She’s mainly homesick for her friends. My counter to this was that 2 1/2 years is NOT enough time to really solidify friendships in our new residence, not to mention that friendships are harder to acquire and maintain in adulthood as opposed to teenage and early adulthood (the times of living with parents). She also misses the Exit Chicago club and some of the native food and restaurants in the Chicago area. I explained my side in that there are many good alternatives here to the things she misses if we look hard enough. It’s too bad we can’t have the best of both worlds right now. No one, not even well-off people, can afford a round-trip plane ticket monthly to Chicago and back to AZ. Her third argument is the people, and culture, here are colder and more callous (read: apathetic) here in PHX, AZ. Yes, I’ve noticed this, too, from day one. My counter is you get the same type of people in Illinois. Maybe not the culture, but one can really make the best of bad situations. In fact, because of the apathy and closemindedness of some of the people here, there were a few times that I wanted to move back “home”. After a time, things got better for me personally. Unfortunately, it seems she can’t make the best of these grievances.

My dilemma is the same now as when we were in the Chicago area deciding this move. I was opposed to the move in the first place, mainly due to family and friends, and my life as a Chicagoan. Now, I find I’ve gotten used to life out here. I guess I just adapt too easily. It would take a lot for me to move back, even with the finances. When you establish a life somewhere and are determined to give it your best, even three years is not enough to give anything that takes long-range plans a chance. We moved out here for a fresh start on our life together. It doesn’t make sense to move back and resume the life we left behind, without giving everything a good, honest long-range shot here.

I’m still making the decision to support my wife however I can. If she’s not happy, then of course I’m not going to be truly happy, no matter how I outwardly feel. I hope everyone, including Christine, can read this and understand how I feel about all this.

The plan, so far is to live out here until we can buy a house here. From then, we can build up enough equity to be able to shop for a house in Illinois. This may take five to seven years, more or less, depending on circumstances. Not as easy as it sounds, I get the idea. Hopefully by then things will be better with living out here. If not, well then we’ll see about moving back to “sweet home Chicago”.

Ok, I’ve vented my spleen. Time to make din-din!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Personal Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.