This one's a biggie. My anxiety is through the roof and I'm doing some self-care in the form of getting my thoughts out.
Some of you may already know the news that I'm about to drop, but most of you won't. If you are one of the few who know our business we would greatly appreciate your discretion if you must comment; we'll tell all when the timing is right for us. If you know me really well then you won't be super shocked by this. Anyway, here goes:
We're leaving Alabama. Like, now-ish.
If this seems like a sudden decision let me go ahead and assure you that it's not. It's a plan that's been in the works between me and my husbang for literal years. Neither of us particularly like it here and in fact there are quite a lot of things that we really DISLIKE about living in Alabama. I'll get into those things shortly, but just go ahead and know that if you have negative feelings about this be glad we're not leaving the whole ass COUNTRY because that was a serious consideration when Trump was in office.
Things that I / we dislike about Alabama in no particular order:
- The weather is awful. I don't want to live somewhere that I can spend my whole adult life making a home for myself only to have it destroyed by a tornado in the blink of an eye. Due to that it feels entirely too risky to me to keep anything I like here. I guess to keep it simple I will also file the humidity here, as well. When my arthritis flares up it HURTS. And I know it's a stretch to file this under "weather" but Shaun's allergies here are ridiculous.
- Our values don't align with the politics of the state. We are far more liberal than the general population here and as such we are governed in ways that we dislike and do not agree with. To keep the list short I'll go ahead and add this here, as well: Since Alabama hates single parents I'mma go ahead and take my career and leave and not give this state a single damn dollar of my soon-to-be more significant tax dollars.
- This could have probably been filed under #2 but it's more than just political - it's a population problem. The way COVID has been handled here is terrible. I can't say that it's been the worst, but it definitely hasn't been good or even acceptable in my opinion. We really can't deal with the anti-mask / anti-vax population here. It's just too much and we feel so unsafe. It's ESPECIALLY annoying since we're in the Bible Belt and everyone claims to be Christian but can't bother to get a little shot and cover their face and social distance to possibly save a neighbors life. We're just completely, 100% over all of this shit.
- There are so few opportunities here. This one is pretty self-explanatory and of course changes with your location within the state, but honestly damn.
This is an announcement rather than a conversation so due to that and the fact that we're extremely busy right now I probably won't be responding to comments (I thought I could turn them off but apparently that's only a thing for public posts and this is not). I don't want opinions about where to move; we've already picked our home and it's a done deal. I don't want questions about where we're going; I'll reveal that when I'm ready. I don't want congratulations or commiserations or shit-talk for not staying. We have one life to live and we're doing what will make us happy and keep us healthy and provide our kids with more opportunity. Anyone who can't appreciate or understand that just doesn't even matter at this point.
There is a lot more to say but I don't have the time nor all of the answers. I will post more as time allows and as we figure things out.
Later, friends!
