Death in the family/moving

Post Reply New Topic

Have any of you lost a loved one (sibling, parent, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, pet?) but then you just need to move to a new home to escape the misery of that deceased person or pet? I have had Timmy for 6 years and he passed Labor Day 2011. The house is empty without him. The vet near my house is where he went and every time I pass by it it just makes me sad. I can't look at the Petsmart or Petco near me. I can't go to places where I used to take him to without being a deep depression. I want to move out of the Northern VA area completely to escape the pain of his loss. My parents and I do have another West Highland Terrier named Ruby. But we take her to the same vet, same groomer, same Petsmart or Petco just like Timmy. We walk her the same course as well. So it just makes me so sad. I want to move to a smaller city. Escape this congested area filled with traffic and just too many people! I was looking at Carlisle PA. The homes are much more affordable than here. I did go a search on here and found that there were several members that live in the Carlisle area. I have always lived in huge cities. I did live in Seoul S Korea many years. But mostly in Northern VA. I just want to escape!

Also if you do live with your parents and no one else, or with a roommate, would you want a relative living with you? If you are so used to having your own bedroom and own bathroom and now you have to share with a relative? The situation is that one of my cousins in Seoul wants to send his 12 year old daughter to live with us. She isn't Catholic but people say Catholic schools are the best. So she may have to repeat the 6th grade or go on to 7th grade. This would be 5 years of misery! I like being a loner.

A few things on this:

It sounds like with the place you live right now, if the traffic and congestion is what's getting to you, moving may be an idea albeit I'd definitely recommend doing some serious homework on whatever locality that you'd think to move to regarding the job openings, projection on real estate values, etc.. Make sure its what you really want.

Additionally with your dog (I think that's him in your av?), it sounds like the only disservice you might have done yourself is not making the space 'yours' more in a psychological sense. Pets often don't live much more than, fifteen or sixteen years at most and that seems to be the case no matter how well you take care of their health. If you find that you just have a very strong emotional bond with pets you may want to have at least a couple so the house doesn't feel empty if one passes; alternately I don't know your career standing, how much time you have on your hands, or what you would think of this but if you have a way with animals and like a specific breed - be a breeder/trainer for shows. A guy in my martial arts class, ex-marine actually, spent years traveling to New Orleans for dog shows and he spent a lot of time training both his own dogs, other people's, apparently he's quite talented with that and made a decent income.

Also - yes, have had roommates before and yes, currently live with my parents and am in the process of saving for, hopefully, one to lead to several mortgages. I think the roommate thing really depends more on who it is rather than having one - at least for me. I don't know how particular you are with the placement of things around your house; I'm pretty uneffected in that regard and as long as whoever I live with respects my space and lets me live autonomously without making too much of a mess there's nothing to complain about. Regarding your 12 year old cousin I don't know what that would be like. Going back to that first paragraph especially though: if you're both serious about moving forward on that, if you are still thinking of moving to a smaller area, be sure its a good school disctrict and try if you can to make sure things remain stable - ie. you can stay there for a few years for her to socially get settled in, have a good group of friends, etc.. Once you become guardian in such a way things like that mean a lot, both to her future and her adjustment to life.

I don't know if advice is really wanted right now, I apologize if any of that was unsolicited, but at the same time I guess you can gauge better than anyone else can how you're feeling and whether or not you'd be willing to put yourself through it again. If not, might be time to strategize on keeping it from being a recurring loop.

OP, I live in PA and there are actually less expensive areas to buy a home than in Carlisle. Was there anything else about the area that you liked, as well? Would the job market be good for your field?

I noticed you said your dog passed away on Labor Day. Everyone grieves at their own pace and I wonder if it might be a good idea for you to spend some more time working through this and perhaps seeing a therapist before making a major life decision, like moving out of state. My concern is that you might just wind up packing up your grief and taking it with you.

I moved out on my own suddenly when I was younger; I just sort of packed up one day and didn't give anyone my new address or phone number for a while. I'd reached a breaking point with living in that home environment and needed to get out. Looking back, it was an improvement in many, if not most, ways. But the bottom line is that, several towns and apartments and going on 10 years later, I am only just now starting to sort through some of the stuff I was running away from back then. Time and changes of location can provide a quick fix, but don't heal much over the long-term and moving isn't a substitute for going through the stages of grief.

I've been living alone ever since and I can understand what you are saying about enjoying being a loner and having your own space. But, living alone can be hard, too! Especially when you don't have family or supports close by and your home is very, very quiet in the middle of the night. If you aren't used to that and are grieving heavily, suddenly living alone could be a challenging adjustment to make.

The Westie avatar is actually a half brother of Timmy's.
Dad looked at Carlisle for one of the top places to live for military retirees. I just want change and want to live in a smaller city and quieter place. Away from traffic and congestion. We also looked at Lancaster area as well. We will be looking at new homes that are being built in Carlisle sometime in April or May. Ryan Homes is the builder. Do you know of any other home builders in PA? I'm sure there are some Asian groceries around Lancaster? I would probably do GIS related or go back and do admin work such as HR assistant.

Don't go with them, whatever you do. If its the same Ryan we have in northeast Ohio you'll be lucky if the house doesn't lose $20,000 to $25,000 on what you paid for it right off the start for all the things they f' up. I'm talking cracked foundations (on which they have very specific metrics for coverage), basement and garage floors buckling, siding that you can peel off on the outside wall of the garage and punch your way through styrofoam to get into the garage. When major problems come up as well its never their fault, its a subcontracted company that they need to call back for each piece of the house and when they fix the problem they're apt to do at least half as bad as they did the first time.

I'd either say buy a pre-existing home or, if you're going to go the new home route, get a different builder - *if* there's any affiliation between that Ryan and the Ryan we have here.

Thanks

http://ryanhomes.com/find-your-home/our ... e-crossing


That is the one we were looking at. They are going to be finished by April/May 2012.

We own a Van Metre home here in No VA.

Oh, okay. So, your whole family would be moving with you? Then it might not be as hard a transition for your as I'd thought.

I work for a nonprofit construction company. (We do accessibility modifications for persons with disabilities and I run the financial aid services). So, basically, I work with a bunch of construction guys, all of whom worked in the for-profit construction field before coming to work for us. So, I don't know about new home construction companies myself, but if you have one in particular that you are looking at in the Lancaster area, feel free to PM me and I can run it by them and see what they have to say about it.

There are a lot of specialty grocers around Lancaster and I would imagine at least one or two probably cater to the Asian community here, but I'm not sure. The cool thing about Lancaster is that there is a lot of variety. It's surrounded by a lot of pretty, quiet rural farmland, but Lancaster City has several colleges and universities, museums and a big art scene. (An close friend of mine does a popular podcast on it: www.thelancast.com) Plus, it's close enough for easy day trips to Baltimore, Philly, DC, etc. So, you sort of get the best of both worlds. I don't know the Carlisle area well enough to be able to sell you on that, though.