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Where's home?

Where's home?

Old Mar 20th 2012, 8:55 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by Uncle Ebenezer
Well, hypothetically speaking, as there are three kids, each with grandkids, if one family left, we'd stay with the other two. If a second set left, the likelihood of them going to the same place is slim. If the third were to leave, we can't cut ourselves in three, so I guess we'd then please ourselves.
I think most of us consider home to be where our immediate family is, with most people wanting to be near there kids/grandkids.

My brother and SIL who have always lived in Yorkshire, and been in the same house for the last 20 years are now making plans to move to Oz, as both their kids have moved there in the last couple of years. It's amazing how somewhere that you consider home can suddenly seem totally wrong and you just want to be somewhere else.
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 9:19 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

I've lived in the US for 25 years, but even though my (adult) children are here and also my grand-children, it will never feel like home. Actually, it's very strange, but the longer I live here and the older I get, the more unsettled I've become. I cannot really explain why - it's just the way I feel. I grew up in Northern Ireland and also lived in England for 10 years. The UK will always be my home. I may ending up spending the rest of my life here, but it will never be my home.
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 9:31 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

How much is down to the individual and how much down to the place? I am sure Seattle being liberalish makes it easier for me to fit in. I also know a little thing like a USL soccer team being replaced with an MLS team and the attendance (and general recognition of the sport) going from 5,000 to 36,000, stopped soccer being something that stamped me as an outsider to something that made me feel a part of things. I know it should be an irrelevance, but it made a difference to me. Once I started to feel a part of things, feeling like it was home soon followed.
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 9:37 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by kimilseung
How much is down to the individual and how much down to the place? I am sure Seattle being liberalish makes it easier for me to fit in. I also know a little thing like a USL soccer team being replaced with an MLS team and the attendance (and general recognition of the sport) going from 5,000 to 36,000, stopped soccer being something that stamped me as an outsider to something that made me feel a part of things. I know it should be an irrelevance, but it made a difference to me. Once I started to feel a part of things, feeling like it was home soon followed.
It's a bit of both. Illinois is supposed to be a 'blue' state but I see no evidence of that in many of the people I have day-to-day dealings with. So that's one thing against at least my corner of the state.

On the footy side, we have the Fire (who Seattle demolished quite recently ) and I'm very active in our local youth soccer program as a coach and ref and hopefully soon a player if they get their arses in gear and set up that 'Over 19s' league! Despite being a bit of an anti-people person I usually get out and about with my camera round the town and I suppose with the music I'm pretty much a part of things in the wider community too.

Yet I still find myself wishing I was back in NI again. In my case, the place should probably be seen as a good fit but it's my inability to adapt that is the problem. Who knows - but it was an interesting point you brought up there at any rate.
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 9:44 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by kimilseung
How much is down to the individual and how much down to the place? I am sure Seattle being liberalish makes it easier for me to fit in. I also know a little thing like a USL soccer team being replaced with an MLS team and the attendance (and general recognition of the sport) going from 5,000 to 36,000, stopped soccer being something that stamped me as an outsider to something that made me feel a part of things. I know it should be an irrelevance, but it made a difference to me. Once I started to feel a part of things, feeling like it was home soon followed.
Maybe that's it. When I moved over, some of my colleagues had previously moved over and I joined their soccer team (they actually came over with a start-up company that was spun off from some work we had been doing for years). So, I already had friends here and integrating was quite easy for me. Plus my wife has friends and family here so that's been quite easy to settle into to.

This is really sad but one of my favourite things is that I can get up early at the weekend, watch the footy and then still have the day to do stuff!
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 9:47 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by Bink
Maybe that's it. When I moved over, some of my colleagues had previously moved over and I joined their soccer team (they actually came over with a start-up company that was spun off from some work we had been doing for years). So, I already had friends here and integrating was quite easy for me. Plus my wife has friends and family here so that's been quite easy to settle into to.

This is really sad but one of my favourite things is that I can get up early at the weekend, watch the footy and then still have the day to do stuff!
Aye that is a benefit of the live games being on at 9am, right enough. Plus, 'er indoors doesn't get a chance to moan at us for being sat in front of the footy when she wants to do something
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 10:15 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Interesting thread.....

I'm not really sure how to answer to "Where's home?" anymore We haven't really lived in any of the 5 States we have lived in(together), long enough to call any of them 'home'. Jay would probably call California home, he spent his first 18 yrs there, but he would never want to go back and live there. If we could go back to the UK with Jay's job, we would go tomorrow, but I am not sure if we would want it to be permanent.

There are still a lot of States here that I want to visit, especially the PNW, hopefully we will get the chance to do that in the not too distant future

I think feeling at 'home' here depends on your personal circumstances. Do you still have parents/family in the UK? Was it your choice to move? Do you have good friends or family here? good social life here? Happy in your work? All these things and more can have a big effect on how you feel about living here vs the UK.

huggs Kim x
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 10:29 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Been thinking it over a bit, and while accents and things can come back, my guess is that I would probably be viewed as a bit of an outsider if I ever moved back. I'd probably be like one of those bores when traveling who goes back somewhere when it is your first visit, and they complain about it not being as good. I'd be at the Albert Dock, moaning "it was all empty in my day, none of this here restaurants, bars and museums"
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 10:38 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

I can't decide on an answer to this. It's not England anymore, but I don't feel at home here either, after moving houses 5 times in the last 7 years I feel a little nomadic. I think it's due to not been 'settled', we don't have green cards so could potentially have to return to the UK at any time, we rent a house which I would never have chosen as a long term thing (lucky really as we're been booted out as the landlords have sold it).

The only place I have truly felt at 'home' in my adult life is the house me and my hubby bought together in Milton Keynes, which we managed to live in for 1 whole year. So for me I think it is a bricks and mortar thing, rather than the area, finding somewhere that is ours and the potential to live there as a family long term.
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 10:45 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by ChocolateBabz
Depends which way the plane in flying. If it's going to the UK I am going 'home' and when we are on our way back here to Texas we are coming 'home' .
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 11:00 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by N1cky
I can't decide on an answer to this. It's not England anymore, but I don't feel at home here either, after moving houses 5 times in the last 7 years I feel a little nomadic. I think it's due to not been 'settled', we don't have green cards so could potentially have to return to the UK at any time, we rent a house which I would never have chosen as a long term thing (lucky really as we're been booted out as the landlords have sold it).

The only place I have truly felt at 'home' in my adult life is the house me and my hubby bought together in Milton Keynes, which we managed to live in for 1 whole year. So for me I think it is a bricks and mortar thing, rather than the area, finding somewhere that is ours and the potential to live there as a family long term.
Hope you get going on the green cards soon and are able to settle!
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 11:05 pm
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by Englishtart
I think feeling at 'home' here depends on your personal circumstances. Do you still have parents/family in the UK? Was it your choice to move? Do you have good friends or family here? good social life here? Happy in your work? All these things and more can have a big effect on how you feel about living here vs the UK.
I'm in the confused camp too. Not certain where "home" is.

The husband & I are duals, both born in America but haven't lived here in the States for decades. We've been back here now 6 months & it still doesn't feel at ALL like what I remember. Everything's very different. This isn't home, it's another foreign country.

We've got one child nicely settled in London & one nicely settled here in the US. "Home-wise" we're split down the middle, I think.
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Old Mar 20th 2012, 11:08 pm
  #43  
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by N1cky
I can't decide on an answer to this. It's not England anymore, but I don't feel at home here either, after moving houses 5 times in the last 7 years I feel a little nomadic. I think it's due to not been 'settled', we don't have green cards so could potentially have to return to the UK at any time, we rent a house which I would never have chosen as a long term thing (lucky really as we're been booted out as the landlords have sold it).

The only place I have truly felt at 'home' in my adult life is the house me and my hubby bought together in Milton Keynes, which we managed to live in for 1 whole year. So for me I think it is a bricks and mortar thing, rather than the area, finding somewhere that is ours and the potential to live there as a family long term.
Wow, can't believe I didn't tie it to the house before now... I think you've just hit it on the head for me. We have just bought here. It's not my first place I've bought (3rd, which is I guess why I didn't make the link) but it's the first House I've bought. Finally somewhere we can decorate without worrying about it and spend money on without thinking, well that's just gone to the landlord's pockets. And finally somewhere with a garden and a proper office/music room and a media room to hide away from it all on a Saturday morning and watch the footy before the wifey and son get up!

Good luck with the green card btw!
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Old Mar 21st 2012, 2:16 am
  #44  
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Default Re: Where's home?

While I had visited the US a few times over the previous few years it started to "feel like home" on the trip that I made in late 1986 to check out a job offer. I moved to the US a few months later on an H-1B visa (much faster application process back then) and have been here ever since.

My first trip back to the UK was in December 1987 and that is when I knew for sure that the US really was "home".
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Old Mar 21st 2012, 2:46 am
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Default Re: Where's home?

Originally Posted by Mr Weeze
My house and life is here, right now. My home, in my head, is North East England. I haven't lived there since 2001.
I know what you mean, well I did. For me I always looked back on the North East as home, that was until a visa issue meant I had to return home for a couple of years.

Now home his here in New Jersey and will be until the day I die. Unless I convince the Mrs that 80 degrees in December is too much to say no to and move to Florida
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