Well, it’s
finally happened. My time in Minnesota
is officially winding done, and it’s California, here I come! I have always wanted to live in California,
pretty much from my early days of living in Arizona, and have often scoped it
out over the years, done some mild calculations, and always come to the same
conclusion – I cannot afford to live in California – until now. Due to this, it’s a little bit hard for me to
believe that this is actually going to happen.
I think it’ll take a few months for it all to sink in, most likely, and
I’ll be really curious to see how I feel once that happens.
With yet
another cross country move looming on the near horizon, I can’t help but have
moving on the brain almost constantly, not to mention the topics of painful aches
(due to moving), bad knees (also due to moving), Minnesota, California, and so
on.
Let me begin
by explaining that I was born in the western suburbs of Chicago, IL, and lived
there until I was 13. My father’s
workplace at Western Electric was being closed down which left him the choice
of either moving to a new location or finding a new job altogether. He chose the former. He had fairly decent seniority and therefore
was placed high on the list, allowing him to pick his preferred relocation
point before many others. My parents
discussed a few options initially but decided to hold out for Phoenix, AZ,
which is where we ended up moving to. We
had been to Arizona only once before, Lake Havasu City, to be exact, where I
still fondly recall our peanut butter melting in our 20 ft. Jayco travel
trailer due to the extreme heat (108-ish, I think?), not to mention the
formerly solid Crisco oil, and so on.
Apart from that, we knew practically nothing about Arizona and had never
even been to Phoenix. Upon my father
placing his official bid, we drove (yes, drove….) out to Phoenix, spent about a
week looking at houses, and at the end of the week my parents purchased a new
build. It was official – we were moving.
The real
downside at the time was that I was just starting my 8th grade year
at the private Catholic grammar school that I attended, the only real school I
had ever known. We moved in late
September and therefore I was only in 8th grade there for a few
weeks. Even worse, at my new public
school, since the school year was already well underway, it put me at an
incredible disadvantage, especially being a very shy child. Needless to say, 8th grade year
was pretty rough. It’s the sort of year
that you truly look forward to for what seems like forever, triumphantly
graduating with these classmates that you grew up, but for me, though, it was
rather anticlimactic and more of a transitional year.
This was my
first and only experience up until then in regards to moving. It was so strange seeing my belongings get
packed up, carried off by some strangers, driven out by yet another group of
strangers, and then finally being able to crack back into my belongings many
months later since we kept them in storage while our house was being
built. There were a lot of “oh, I forgot
I had this!” kind of moments. It also
meant that we had to move twice; once from IL to AZ into a storage unit, and
then from the storage unit into the house about four months later. One of the items that needed to be moved was
an upright piano and I still to this day can’t recall how the hell we got that
moved between my father and myself. It
was a pretty horrendous move overall because my parents also didn’t believe in
selling off any of their belongings prior to moving, and so basically
everything we owned had to be physically moved in one fashion or another.
Like most
people, I’m sure, I then moved multiple times starting around my late teen
years, all local moves from one end of the Phoenix area to another. With each move, it seemed I was accumulating
more and more belongings. These tended
to be awful experiences since I somehow always ended up moving in the middle of
summer, when the temperatures were upwards of 100 degrees. This behavior continued until I bought a
house in 2001 where I remained until 2004.
In that year, being tired of the extreme heat, I decided to do the
impossible…move across country from AZ to Indianapolis, of all places, and, on
top of that, to do it all myself with only one helper and 3 cats in the cab of a
Penske truck. I had helpers to load up
the truck, thankfully, but we drove straight through from AZ to IN with only
stops for gas and food/bathroom breaks. 33
hours total, to be exact. It was a
nightmare, total freakin’ nightmare, almost beyond words, with cats howling
almost the entire way. There’s more to
this story but I’ll save that for another time.
After finally
getting settled, moving locally once more in Indianapolis and buying a home, I
then decided that I wasn’t really liking it there so I moved to Minneapolis,
MN. I know, smart, huh?! This took 2 separate moves of my belongings,
and also one extremely loud and smelly car ride with 3 cats in their carriers,
whining/screaming pretty much the entire time (again). The drive is only 8 hours from IN to MN but
with 3 howling felines it kind of feels like days.
And so, I’ve
been in MN ever since, partially out of fear of doing another cross country
move and also due to things just not working out in trying to move again. I wanted to leave MN as early as 3 years in
but then the economy collapsed, and I was suddenly underwater on my mortgage,
and so on. I was basically stuck for
quite some time. I did almost leave in
2013 but pulled out of the idea at the last second, mainly due to the
circumstances surrounding it. It just
wasn’t ideal at that time and things just didn’t seem to be fitting into place,
if you know what I mean. I’m a firm
believer that if life keeps throwing horrendous obstacles at you repeatedly for
no real reason, maybe it’s just trying to tell you something. And so, I listened. This time around, though, things have been
fitting into place mostly, or at least with a little bit of elbow grease. This still begs the question, though, of why
leave?
Ah,
Minnesota… Land of 10,000 lakes, the
central focus in the movie “Fargo”, one of the coldest bigger cities in the
continental US. A very common question I
hear, at least in Minnesota, is why would I ever want to leave? This is about the biggest typical Minnesota
question in the world and ironically partly explains why I’m leaving. For you non-Minnesotans out there, it’s hard
to explain but the typical Minnesotan believes that they live in paradise, akin
to somewhere like, say, Hawaii, for the rest of us. Of course, almost 100% of the rest of the
country thinks that Minnesotans are completely insane in this thinking. I mean, the weather can be rather horrible
with very harsh winters, it’s loaded with bugs during the few months that have
pleasant weather, it’s land locked, it’s so-called fly over country, and so
on. My theory has always been that
Midwesterners have to make themselves feel better about living in the Midwest
and so they concoct these strange, bizarre misconceptions about where they
live. This sort of thinking isn’t only
in the Twin Cities area but it’s certainly on steroids here. Per a typical Minnesotan, everything here is
“the best…”, even things that make no sense whatsoever or couldn’t possibly be. For example, in talking about California and
the coastline, a Minnesotan might butt in, “…but you know, we have more miles
of coastline than CA and Florida put together!”
By coastline, they mean, of course, the so called “10,000 lakes”, or,
well, ponds/cesspools, as I call them. I’m not sure how that compares with beaches
and the ocean but… Minnesotans also
pride themselves on having the so-called best State Fair in the country. Maybe they do…I don’t know, but I’ve
personally never seen State Fairs as a reason to choose to live somewhere. I mean, who does that? A Minnesotan,
that’s who. There is just such an
overwhelming sense of false pride in this area that it’s hard not to choke on
it, although you’d only notice and care about it if you’re not originally from
here, which explains also quite a bit.
The adage goes: “Minnesota…you
can’t get anyone to move there, and you can’t get anyone from there to leave.” I’ve found this to be pretty much spot on.
Most people
automatically assume that I’m leaving MN due to the weather, and whereas I’ll
admit that after 20 years in AZ of not having “the seasons” and then having
them again for the past 11 years, I find them pretty darn overrated. I used to dream of fall when I lived in AZ
and complained about not having it; in MN, though, don’t blink because you’ll usually
miss it. Fall tends to be about 2-3
weeks maximum, not the long, drawn out season that I falsely recalled from
childhood, and depending upon the weather, it far too often goes straight from
summer to winter. The only real evidence
of fall is usually the huge pile of leaves on your lawn that you’re not sure
what to do with. Then, winter comes. Minnesota is the polar opposite problem of Arizona
weather-wise, in my opinion. Over there,
I complained that the extreme heat (aka “summer”) lasted way too long, like 9
months of the year. In MN, winter
usually lasts at least 6 months, and sometimes it can last 8. Maybe I’ll feel different in a couple of
years but, at the moment at least, I feel like the seasons might be better
experienced by simply taking a road trip rather than having to live in them.
Having said
that, though, the weather really isn’t my main complaint. First, there’s the “work” aspect. Minnesotans and Midwesterners love their
grass and lawns. Why? I really have no clue. I’ll admit that the greenery is nice but it’s
just grass, after all, and a huge pain in the ass, in my opinion. People treat their lawns here like it’s some
sort of work of art, like a canvas with the latest Jackson Pollock. I think people tend to be more anal retentive
about their lawns than almost anything else, and they expect you to be as well. And so, you’re out there practically every
week mowing the lawn, and for what?
Again, no clue. Apart from the
exercise angle, I think it’s a complete waste of time, especially since the
lawns here are literally the entire yard.
No hills, no dividers, no nice looking brick pavers or anything…just
wall to wall flat grass from property line to property line. It’s a matter of opinion, of course, but I
think it’s just about the most boring look possible. Give me some stones and a nice cactus any day
of the week!
One of my
biggest complaints in Minnesota is the overall pace of life. I’ve tried, truly I have, but I just can’t
adjust to it. People drive painfully
slow and are overly cautious, as if a small child might parachute out of the
sky at any moment and land in front of their car. They walk about the same. Try walking through Ikea at the MOA on a busy
day…you’ll know what I mean. The Midwest
is also historic for being extremely slow to change. For example, the typical house décor here
seems to be 10-20 years behind the west coast.
I’ve seen “recent” décor here that I thought went out in 1985. A lot of the attitudes on life move at about
the same pace. Change isn’t really accepted
with open arms here and it’s constantly in a battle with tradition, with
tradition usually coming out the victor.
I’m personally pretty big on change and not very into tradition. I always say tradition is great but it should
work for you, not just be some silly
ritual that you do every year regardless of really wanting to or knowing why
you’re doing it. All too often, in my
experience, people just go through the motions with tradition without any idea
of why they’re doing it. To me, this is
more of what I’d call a chore and I’m just not very interested in it.
There’s also
the food issue. I moved here to open up
my options on food; what I got was the exact opposite. I thought I was moving to a vegetarian
friendly town, which I guess it was at one time maybe but since has
changed. In general, though, let’s just
say that I’ve never consistently had such horrible food over and over at
different locations in my life. For
example, I was served jarred Alfredo sauce at an Italian restaurant - no
joke. We’re not really talking about
differences in palette…we’re talking differences in quality, like getting
served a plate of greens (salad) but nothing on the plate is actually
green. Half the time, we get something
literally rotten served to us and no one seems to think anything of it. It’s like that’s just normal here. Ick.
And lastly,
there are the people and the lifestyle. I’ve
honestly struggled greatly with these things ever since I arrived. I quickly learned that there really is no
“Minnesota Nice”. Yeah, sure, people will
stop to help you out if you’re in need, and they may wave you forward at a 4
way stop (even though that technically throws off traffic and confuses people
even more), but if you pass them in the hall, don’t expect them to greet you
with a friendly smile. Instead, they’ll
look down at the floor, act like you’re not there, etc. Also, everyone made their body of friends
back in high school and so now, as a newcomer, they’ve no room for you and so
don’t expect to be accepted with open arms.
Plus, I think people are just naturally skeptical of newcomers, although
I’m not sure why. Someone once told me,
“Cold weather = cold people.” I don’t
know if this is totally true but I’ve certainly experienced it time and time
again. Also, there are only a couple
handfuls of lifestyles here and not a lot of room for anything else so if you
don’t fit in, well, good luck.
As you
probably guessed, I don’t fit in. I’ve
never really felt very comfortable here, to be honest. I don’t fish, hunt, watch football, ride
motorcycles, etc., so I’m already completely on the outs with one major
crowd. I’m also not a hipster, urban
dweller, raging liberal, etc., and so I’m out with that crowd as well.
Please
understand that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Minnesota. I know that everything I’m writing sounds the
opposite but, in all honesty, it’s perfectly fine. It’s just not for me, plain and simple. I moved back to the Midwest looking for a
more fulfilled life with seasons; what I got was much less fulfillment, tons
more judgment, much shallower conversations, terrible food with practically
nothing vegetarian at all, and seasons that just favor winter and chores like
mowing the lawn and snow blowing (another joy, let me tell ya). I didn’t realize what I had by living in the
west, pure and simple, and it was a bad trade, for me at least.
Moving is
pure hell, trust me, and at my age it’s really hell at this point due to a bad
back, bad knees, and now a torn meniscus in my right knee specifically. Still, I see no other choice. It’s time to undo a wrong, something that’s
haunted me at night for the past 11 years.
Quite frankly, when I left AZ, I went the wrong way. California here I come! Maybe it won’t be a total dream. Maybe it won’t even work out and I’ll end up
moving again. Who knows! All I know right now is that I’m greatly
looking forward to the change. I need it
and dare say I’ve earned it. People say
to me all the time about how shallow people in CA can be. My eyebrows usually raise since everyone I’ve
come in contact with so far has been incredibly nice, even at grocery stores,
coffee shops, etc. Maybe I just fit
in…who knows. I guess I’ll find out soon
enough.
