Do you feel "at home" where you live?

[Hwin]

No, but I live very close to places that I do feel at home. It's getting better as I try to get involved in the community, but the only interesting people I've met are senior citizens.

[Jennifer3141]

Yes, because I'm on a farm. And I know that when/if we ever move again, we'll end up on another little farm. None of us could survive without the farm aspect or our animals. I could leave my house and farm someplace else. But I'd have to have a farm. And my ducks. And my rabbits. Goddess help Uhaul if we ever do move. :smilielol5:

[nono]

I grew up in New Jersey and that never felt like home to me. I couldn't wait to get out of there

 

 

Hey, I took your spot! :seeya: I liked everywhere I lived, but each time I moved, I was a little clearer about what I wanted and enjoyed. So mine was like a path leading to the coast. But I feel like I found the right culture along the coast for me here. It's not hard living here for me, despite the last 24 hours. ;)

[justamouse]

Yes, I finally do now, but I totally know what you mean.

 

I moved to the town of my birth, BTW. :D

[KrissiK]

No, I hate living in CA except for the weather. I would like my house if it cost a normal amount (it would cost probably half if it were located in my hometown and would sit on 2 acres instead of 1/5 acre).

 

I lived in the Bay Area a while and didn't feel at home there at all. I hated it.

 

I feel at home where we live, but I did grow up here and that has a lot to do with it

[DawnM]

No, I do not. We have been in NC for 8 years now but I have never felt this was home. I grew up overseas an the place I picked as an adult to live was CA. I felt very at home there. It suited me. I miss it.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I don't feel home here. Never have. But interestingly we moved to N VA in 2010 and we were there for 16 months. I felt at home almost instantly. Dh did not :-( I clicked with the people and loved the area. I have very little negative to say about it. When Dh's job didn't work out and we moved back HERE again I was bummed. Still am. We owned a home here before and it didn't feel like home then either.

 

Like you we have lived in a lot of places/states and nothing ever felt right.

 

And I still feel like I am searching where I need to be. But it's too expensive to keep moving and hoping it's the right place. I know part of my own issue is the distance to family. While we aren't close and don't do much together(in part due to distance) I have always wanted an active family that gets together. I yearn for that but yet it will never happen.

 

Right now I would say I am resigned to where we are, trying to stay busy with people here, and hope to connect with people in the future. Our circle is small and not very social outside of those activities. And perhaps one day we will end up where I feel at home. But no, I don't feel that about here and never have. Been here a long time now....

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Man...you gals are not making me feel hopeful. I thought it was just me, but apparently this isn't unusual.

I feel the exact opposite; knowing that others feel the same way is comforting. I am not abnormal.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

No. But that is because everyone in this town grew up here, went to college, then came back here to live. The friendships and cliques are all held over from high school,

 

This is exactly the same as the town we live in.

 

--

I am enjoying hearing about all of the people who call CO 'home'. CO rocks and will always be home to me. I grew up in Colo. Springs.

[m0mmaBuck]

I prefer change. I like to move. So maybe feeling at home isn't even my issue.

 

Maybe it's not even that I don't feel at home here so much as the fact that I feel stuck. I've always said that if I can't go to the grocery store without running into someone I know, it's time to leave. Well, it's been time to leave for about 13 years by that standard. (I find that happens after about 2 years in a place). In the past, I might have just moved across town to a different apartment but we have been in our house for 12 years. When I haven't been able to physically pack up and move, I have changed jobs. I can't do either right now and I'm feeling like a trapped animal.

 

I have lived in WI, MN, SC, NC, GA, TX, CO, CA, and WA. I grew up in WI and always have a soft spot for the farm but I can't imagine moving back there. I really liked CO and TX but I'm not sure that is the answer either. I know I don't want to stay here in WA.... I have work acquaintances and a handful of friends but no one I would feel compelled to come back and visit if I were to move. I actually only have 3 friends that I ever feel compelled to see and none of them live here.

 

I don't know what would make me feel more at home here and I don't see me getting to move any time soon so I need to find something to change before I go completely crazy.

[m0mmaBuck]

So what do you do to make a place feel like home? Is it your house? I hate my house. Is it friends? Belonging to certain groups? I can't change the weather (would that I could) so that's out. Does anyone have suggestions?

[butterflymommy]

I haven't read the other replies, but I've always chalked this up to living in dormitories since age 15, then different apartments alone, plus, my original "home" was dysfunctional. I still struggle to feel "home" even in my home, but I do feel more at home where I currently live than anywhere else. I sometimes miss the town where I grew up but I don't miss the people.

[Esperella]

No, I can't leave the house without being reminded that my DH and I are not welcomed here. Moving here has been awful and I pray daily that God finds a way to get me out of here before my kids get old enough to realize how we are treated.

 

I have felt at home everywhere else, but not here.

[ocelotmom]

No, the town I lived in most of my adult life feels like home (much moreso than the town where I grew up). Unfortunately, from a practical standpoint, it isn't a place we can reasonably make a lifelong home.

[redmom3]

We have been in CA now for a year. It does not feel like home-I love our house and the six of us together are always "home" Church family helping some.

But.......

I was born and raised in TX.

I feel like I could be taken blindfolded anywhere in the world, open my eyes and "just know" if I were anywhere in TX or not.:)

I have lived short times in SC( which was nice) and MI(didn't feel like home either)

CA is a whole different ballgame than anywhere else--dd18 will have to go back home---she's miserable here:(

 

[happypamama]

Except for a couple of years in Boston, I've lived my entire life in the mid-Atlantic area, but not every one of the places there feels like home. Some are too busy or crowded, some don't feel like they have like-minded people. We'd never lived in south-central PA before we moved here (just the center and southeastern parts of the state), but moving here was a dream come true -- it truly feels like home. There are other places we'd probably enjoy as well, but here is the first place we'd really be sad about leaving.

 

Maybe, OP, you just haven't found the right home for you yet.

[I talk to the trees]

Nope. I'm pretty sure if I started listing reasons, I'd be banned for foul language, so I'll leave it at that. :leaving:

[Brilliant]

Yes.

 

I love, love, love where we live. I don't know how to explain it other than it just feels "right". And I don't particularly love the house we are renting. But I feel more content than I remember feeling in...ever.

 

I hated, hated, hated the last place we lived (just 18 miles from here). I never felt right in that house or that community. I would lie awake at night thinking about how much I feared our neighbor (posted about crazy Steve more than once here, I think). And again, I don't have a truly rational explanation except that everything just felt WRONG.

[Brilliant]

We have been in CA now for a year. It does not feel like home-I love our house and the six of us together are always "home" Church family helping some.

But.......

I was born and raised in TX.

I feel like I could be taken blindfolded anywhere in the world, open my eyes and "just know" if I were anywhere in TX or not. :)

I have lived short times in SC( which was nice) and MI(didn't feel like home either)

CA is a whole different ballgame than anywhere else--dd18 will have to go back home---she's miserable here:(

 

We are Texans and sometimes I miss "home". But we have been on the West Coast for 16 years now, and I don't think we'll ever go back - for the first time, I don't really want to go back.

 

:grouphug: to your daughter and to you. I hope you find a way to feel more at home.

[Brilliant]

So what do you do to make a place feel like home? Is it your house? I hate my house. Is it friends? Belonging to certain groups? I can't change the weather (would that I could) so that's out. Does anyone have suggestions?

 

For me, it's definitely not the house. ALTHOUGH it is related to the neighborhood. I like the convenience of our neighborhood to the things I do on a daily/weekly basis. I love that dh is 3 miles from his office, and that ds can ride his bike to the community college. And we are not friends with our neighbors, but we've met some of them and they are nice and I feel comfortable asking them to do something like look out for a package delivery if we'll be out of town.

 

I think it's mostly a combination of friends/social group, church, cultural & recreational opportunities (which can be weather dependent!). So I think you have some control over the social & church aspects but not much else.

[PrincessMommy]

I've never felt "at home" anywhere but where I grew up. I'm not talking about just the house. I'm talking about everything: the house, the geographical area, the people, the culture, etc. I've lived in over 40 different houses, apartments, and dorm rooms in my life. I've called 9 different states "home." I've been in my current state for over 15 years and in my current house for over 12. I still don't feel like this is "home."

 

Does anyone else feel like this? What am I doing wrong?

 

 

I don't feel at home in my current house (1yr) and it took a very long time to feel at home in my previous home (lived there 19yrs). But, with the current house the feeling is much worse. I've lived in this county my whole life, but I still struggle with feeling "at home". I feel like it's some kind of elusive dream.

 

I don't know what you're doing wrong because apparently I'm doing it too! I'm going to read others replies to see what suggestions they have.

[AnIslandGirl]

I love small town living and the feeling of "home"! Any shop you go into, someone always asks, "How are your parents, did your cousin have the baby yet, dd9 was wonderful in the recital last week, does she just love piano?" and the list goes on and on.

As an extrovert, I really do love the closeness of all our friends and neighbors. We have seventh generation+ yacht club members. Our families have all grown up together, now we are growing old together. My introverted sister though, hates having everyone know her business.

I do wonder if extroverted people have an easier time feeling a "community home" than introverts.

[meggie]

Only when we go up into the mountains. There's a huge feeling of being home.

[Jerico]

I kinda feel like its home in every place we live. But when I travel back to previous towns/state it also feels like home. Now I feel weird. I think home for me is anything that is familiar- so once I adjust or some place that I had considered home at one time or another.

[TravelingChris]

Anyplace I stay for a while is home. HOme is where I am at, hopefully with my husband and currently at least one kid. I will soon get used to have no kids though as the last one will probably go away to college in 2.5 years.

 

I have moved a lot but it isn't just moves. I feel at home on vacations when I rent or stay at one place for a while. I just adapt really easily. I did not move around much as a younggers- only four moves I remember and all were within the DC metro area and two were within blocks of each other. My dh doesn't get it. He keeps asking me why I feel at home here in the SOuth when I keep telling him I vacationed every summer in my youth in southern VA or NC or going down to Florida. We are going on vacation this weekend and we will see how he likes it. We are going to the Deep South (Huntsville really isn't).

But I can see how people can not feel at home if they are not welcomed. I heard a woman talk this last weekend about how rejected she felt in another city in the South because of questions about family connections. That lady is such a sweet, generous woman who has just done so much good in her life and is a true Southerner so to hear how even she felt rejected by ancestry questions made me think how being in such a place wouldn't be very fun at all.

 

One thing that I think has made it so much easier for me is that I choose homes in neighborhoods that are always very similar to others I liked with the same type of people living near me. I always chose well educated neighborhoods and then I choose churches with that same group. Then I tend to go on vacations that other people like me go on. I could see it being much harder if your economic situation causes you to live in a neighborhood that is not with others of your type, I did live in such neighborhoods when I was younger. I still felt at home, someplace, like my own house and my church and my leisure activities but not necessarily at home in the actual neighborhood.

[PrincessMommy]

Only when we go up into the mountains. There's a huge feeling of being home.

 

Me too! I live too close to the city and I think the stress is getting to me. The mountains always feel like home, even though I've never lived there.

[No More Perfect]

I completely understand. I was an Army brat and we moved a bit in my 0-9 years. Then we moved to Florida and I lived there for 10 years. We've lived in Texas most of our married years, have moved here and there and everywhere in this state, and I definitely do not feel at home here. I've come to realize that Texas is not home, Florida is, and we are talking about moving to to FL. Still, I wonder if we actually do move there, if I will feel that I need to move again. Texas is definitely not home, though.

[m0mmaBuck]

I completely understand. I was an Army brat and we moved a bit in my 0-9 years. Then we moved to Florida and I lived there for 10 years. We've lived in Texas most of our married years, have moved here and there and everywhere in this state, and I definitely do not feel at home here. I've come to realize that Texas is not home, Florida is, and we are talking about moving to to FL. Still, I wonder if we actually do move there, if I will feel that I need to move again. Texas is definitely not home, though.

 

I grew up on a farm in WI (0-18 yrs) and then moved away for college and never went back. I met DH who was in the Army and we moved around and travelled a lot. We ended up in WA courtesy of Uncle Sam and when DH retired we stayed because I had a good job, we were close to the Base and VA, and DH was in school. Now our reasons for being here have changed but I don't think either of us feels like we are "home." I don't even know where "home" is, but WA is not it.

[Crimson Wife]

I did not feel at all home in either Portland, OR or New England. It was a cultural thing. I could have gotten used to Portland if I had stayed for a few years, but I knew from the moment I got to New England that I would never fit in, and always be unhappy for it. For me, New England is a lovely area to visit, but not actually live.

 

I do agree that New England has its own unique culture, but it's one I personally miss. I hate all the passive-aggressiveness of Californians and how they'll be all nicey-nice to your face but then the moment you turn your back, they'll stab you right in the back. In New England, you know where you stand with people because they are more direct and honest about it. You'll know when they have a problem with you because they will get up right in your face about it. But the flip side of that is tremendous loyalty from your friends.

[Rhea]

I have never felt at home, that sense of belonging, anywhere that I have lived. Note, I'm not referring to the houses, or the home that my children, husband and I make together, but to the larger sense of belonging in the town, or even state, where I live.

 

We've been in this current town for 10 years. I imagine that it would be wonderful to feel that sense of place here, but none of us do. My kids, born and raised in the state, feel no sense of attachment to it, or this town. I do wonder how much of that has to do with my kids having been on the "outside" for their early years, being homeschooled in a small rural town.

 

But what I most wanted to mention, in case it benefits anyone else who doesn't feel that sense of rootedness, is that the first account I read that described how I felt was in the description of what many Third Culture Kids feel. Kids who live several years in their home country, the in another country, then possibly another or back home... and as a result don't have that sense of being rooted in any place, that sense of belonging. This can come about in more ways than the example I just gave that involves country hopping. For example, someone whose father is of one culture and mother of another may grow up not only not feeling they don't fit in either culture, but not feeling a sense of being rooted anywhere, even if they spent their entire childhood in one town.

 

Anyhow, it was nice to read about it, and see that I wasn't alone. Wanted to toss it out there in case anyone else in the "No" answer group would be interested.

 

(I haven't been on the forum in ages so probably no one remembers it, but I'm the one who asked years ago about "Where should we move to?" and lots of wonderful suggestions were given. We are still here though, still wanting to move, only now the kids are older, we don't have horses anymore, and we're thinking about spending time outside of the US together before all of the kids have left the nest.)

[delaney]

No, because I am not a neighborhood girl. I want a farm with a lot of acreage and privacy. Not a cookie cutter neighborhood with boring, perfect yards.

Ha! This is what I wanted once we had kids. Sidewalks and pretty lawns. Now I want to run from here screaming. I am a liberal, atheist, witchery, stay at home mom surrounded by the opposite. I live behind the local high school and the people around here worship the whole school and football mom thing. Barf. We are soccer players here and although my 2 oldest go to public the younger 4 never will. I am the odd man out.

[lailasmum]

No not really. I moved back to where I grew up when I had kids-I think it was a mistake. I love the countryside and the general lack of feeling hemmed in but I have never felt like I had a community here. It's generally very small town/retirement type place and people are very local and closed minded. It's getting worse with the poor economy since so many places that would bring people in to work and shake things up have closed down. I would love to move up to where my husband works as he is never here anyway and there would be a lot more in the way of different people and things to do.

[dontknow]

Comforting to know I'm not alone with this feeling.

 

The answer for me is a resounding NO. We lived in our first house for 10 years (almost to the day) and within the first 2 years of being there, I began disliking it. My wife finally caught up to me about 5 years later. Never felt like home and the extremely large tracked neighborhood we were in had way too many kids without parental discipline.

 

When we finally decided to sell we had to select between moving to a "better" neighborhood (based on various criteria) or staying in a similarily kind of place (but much smaller) and due to life circumstances with employment, etc,,,,,. we decided to play it safe and went with the similar place. It's been 4 years and though I'm ready to leave today, I'll be here for at least 2-3 more years. It's not just the undisciplined kids but it's the surrounding environment, tone, etc.... I'm very unhappy and dread the good weather and longer days coming as I know what it brings.

 

As the saying goes, do the same thing - get the same results. Hopefully will not do the same thing next time. Will hope for different results.

[texasmama]

It sounds like you moved so much in your life that nowhere could really become home. I think of home as a nostalgic feeling of familiarity, and it sounds like you didn't have that growing up.

 

I have always felt at home in Texas, particularly the area I grew up in, where I am currently. I lived for five years in Maryland. It was lovely, and the people were nice, but it was never home.

[Cafdog]

Nope. I was dragged from Seattle to CA under protest, and have been stuck here for 9 years now. (Love the weather, though!)

 

I'm a liberal atheist in a conservative town. Not a good fit. It doesn't help that I am quite the gypsy, and love to move around every few years. I've been planted in one place too long. I'm getting squirrelly.