I want to preface this with a few disclaimers. First, the thoughts here do not necessarily reflect those of my wife or anyone else related to me. Second, I absolutely love my job, my friendly, and those around me. Finally, I recognize that I have a wealth of privilege that enables me to make the decisions I will describe below, and I will attempt to acknowledge this privilege where relevant.

Life is really hard. My current biggest struggle is figuring out where to live. Again, from my disclaimers above: my wife and I love our jobs and, probably more so, the life-changing friends we have made here. Unfortunately, this probably isn’t the best place for us to live in the long-term. We are quite literally 1,000 miles from family and friends back home, with a trip home costing $1,000 by air/rental car or $600 and 2 extra travel days by car. Lubbock is also quite brown, which doesn’t sit well with me as someone from the hills and forests of Southern Illinois. So that brings me to my current dilemma: Where should I live?

The Criteria

There are several factors that will play into our choice of where to live, and likely many more we haven’t even considered yet. Here’s an overview of some of the most important ones:

Bright Lights, Big City

We want to live somewhere somewhat large. We want a variety of different restaurants, entertainment venues, and other similar items. I want to live in a city where major bands/touring groups may possibly stop as part of their tours. A major airport would also be nice to help with any travel we may have. Southern Illinois doesn’t really fit this bill. I remember living in Carbondale and only really wanting to eat at one of maybe 5 restaurants in town, and there was little to do in town outside of movie theaters or going to the mall. Sure, expanding that out to include Marion, Murphysboro, or even Sikeston, Cape, and Paducah give a few more options, but the towns mostly all have the same things and it’d be nice to not drive for an hour to hop between things. Lubbock is a little better at this, as the town has grown considerably even in the 4 years we have been here. The university helps by supporting this large population and by providing event venues for acts to stop in at. Lubbock’s airport could be better, since every flight has to go through Dallas, but at least it is serviced by Southwest, American, and United.

Educational opportunities also play a part in this. Growing up, my schools had great music, drama, and art programs, but we had very little in terms of STEM support. Granted, that wasn’t a big thing yet, but I didn’t have any access to learn coding, robotics, or anything similar. I have recently discovered I should have pursued computer science in some form or fashion in my undergraduate work, but I simply hadn’t had any exposure to it.

Finally, there’s job opportunities. Wherever we live next must be big enough to have enough jobs in our related fields. My wife would need somewhere with a good number of hospitals, medical clinics, and ideally cancer treatment centers. I would need either a few major universities and junior colleges (to satisfy my PSLF requirements and utilize my Higher Ed Admin masters) OR a few larger corporations with databases that need analyzed/maintained/reported on (to utilize the last 4 years of experience and my graduate certification). These opportunities don’t really exist in Southern Illinois, nor do they honestly exist that well in Lubbock (although we are thankful and happy with the jobs we have).

But Not Too Big…..

The flip side of the prior statement is finding something that isn’t huge. I hate the idea of sitting in traffic for an hour to get somewhere that’s less than 30 miles away. Sure these places would have all of the options from above, but the extra traffic and congestion works against it a little in my mind. I’m not sure I could live somewhere like Chicago, Houston, or even DFW, although possibly something along the outskirts would be a little better. St. Louis also feels really tight and congested with everything pushed up towards the river. Lubbock is a little better at this, since the town has grown outward rather than upward.

Proximity to Family and Friends

We have a ton of family and friends from back home with which we want to stay connected.  These are fiends we went to high school or college with that are starting to raise families just like we are. Sure, we have tons of awesome friends here, but most of our Lubbock friends are older and in slightly different points in their lives. Family members have made a few trips down/up to see us, and we have tried to go home 1-2 times each year we have been here, but that isn’t ideal if/when we start looking at growing our family. It’d be nice to get somewhere where we could see family and friends in a quick weekend trip – close enough to drive after work on a Friday and come home on Sunday without being exhausted. To be honest, this is also the largest source of pressure/stress for us in this process, as family members on both sides have made it clear that they would much prefer things if we lived closer.

Putting it Together

This is a huge point of stress for me the last year or so. I literally had a nightmare the other night where I dreamed I was moving to Los Angeles but was mortified by all of the criteria it didn’t meet, how people would react to this move, and if we would even be happy from this move. By the time you take everything into account, you get something like the above rubric (which is an actual file that exists in my Google Drive – did I mention I work with databases?).

Something like Denver, Albuquerque, or the Pacific Northwest would be absolutely gorgeous places to live, and would likely provide ample opportunities (jobs, education, and entertainment) but would put us much farther from family and friends. Denver is also a crazy expensive place to live, so I should probably add cost of living as a criteria to my spreadsheet. Staying in Texas (especially BCS or Houston) would improve our green situation a little, would put us much closer to my brother and his wife (a huge plus), and would likely still give us big-city opportunities, but it would put us farther from Lubbock friends without moving us closer to Illinois friends. It would also only marginally put us closer to family (although there is some improvement from my side by me and Aaron being close to each other if my parents ever are able to come here). That then leaves only 3 real options: Kansas City, Indianapolis, and St. Louis as larger cities with or near major airports that put us closer to some family members and friends. Which brings me to a final point.

Choice and Privilege

I have kept politics out of this post up until this point, but I can’t help but see how it is related.  I’ve written about the concept of choice and privilege before, but I wanted to tie these two together. If you’re interested in following my train of thought, click here.