It’s Time To Move

We’re at our house again.

I can’t call it “home” as it really doesn’t feel like that anymore, sometimes I don’t think it ever did.

That’s not entirely true. For our first 5 years or so here it very much did feel like home but not anymore.

I know it is no longer safe for me to go to the store as I have to choose between trying to be safer with a mask or face harassment. Joy is having to constantly alter her running routes due to severe sexual harassment from new people in the neighborhood. It’s just not safe and these examples just serve to scratch the surface of the bigger issue.

We’ve given up all our hobbies as well. Joy was never able to get into local theaters and we both had to sell the motorcycles we loved as they were rotting, literally, in our carport. Even when we did ride neither of us felt too safe on crowded streets filled with tourists, mostly elderly, who don’t know the area. An accident was almost guaranteed at some point had we kept them.

We also don’t feel safe or comfortable in the local bars. We spent a lot of time hangout out at one, Mr. Beery’s, until COVID but it is now permanently gone and all the remaining bars in walking distance allow smoking. Of course this doesn’t touch the fact I no longer drink, even beer, but some of that was never meant to be an absolute thing, more than just we wanted a hangout other than the bars and my 1-2 beers a day wasn’t great for long-term health.

We do like the layout of our home itself. For its size it has made it almost perfect for us to work and live in but that’s about all we feel safe doing anymore. It’s time to move on.

Rather than waiting for the perfect place we’re going to get this house ready to sell and look for a temporary place for 1-2 years. That will give us a chance to find where we want to be as well as be a catalyst to change.

It will be nice to be able to live again.