Why you’ve chosen to live where you live?

Have you chosen to live in the city/ area you live in due to convenience or because of your job? If given the choice, would you love someplace else?

If you have been following my blog long enough, you’d know I don’t ever really get to have a say in anything – where I live, what to eat, how to live, etc. It’s one of the things about being tethered to my mom like a conjoined twin.

People asks me all the time, “What made you move to Utah?”

I would answer, “Um, my mom found a job here.”

I was born in China and lived in China until my mom decided to uproot and move to the US, a place I knew next to nothing about until I arrived in Los Angeles. Then 4 years later, after having a few friends, enjoying school, and became a full-fledge American, I was once again uprooted to Texas. Whose decision that was, I think it’s 50/50 between my mom and stepdad.

I was not consulted in the decision. In fact, I wasn’t told we’re moving until a week before. I never got to truly say bye to my friends.

I ended up staying in Texas for a little over 18 months before moving again to Salt Lake City, where I finished the last 2 years of high school. After returning from her military training, mom decided she wanted to settle in Utah. We started looking at houses during my Senior year in high school but didn’t like the old fixer-uppers on the east benches of Salt Lake City.

Mom decided we needed to head north and had somehow chosen the city we’re currently living in due to its vicinity to the air force base. We looked at lots of houses in quiet residential neighborhoods that’s away from the runway but against my wishes, mom had chosen the house her brother’s currently living in now.

In 2017, after my former co-worker bailed on her offer to buy the house I’m currently living in, mom made me buy the house instead, ultimately tying me down to where I am now. If I’m not tied down as I am now, I would’ve moved out probably in 2018 or once I have a stable income since I wouldn’t have a mortgage. I would’ve moved southward into an apartment or a townhome away from my current life but that’s years ago, before COVID and before I developed claustrophobic fear of being around more than a few people.

If you were to ask me where I would like to live now if I’m given the choice, I would say probably somewhere in Wyoming or even more north than I am now where I would have a decent-size plot of land, at least larger than the one I have now, and where I would be close to nature.

#SundayPoser