It’s been two years since we moved from Ohio to Massachusetts. I have found a few incredible friends – supportive and kind and funny. But they all are from here and have deep roots and extensive support systems. Meanwhile, I️ feel like I’m cobbling together a tiny handful of people to be a support system.
One of my biggest dilemmas lately is how to share the reality of my history with new people in my life. If I don’t know how to tell a new friend about my losses, I feel like they don’t fully know ME and I can’t be as close to them. But I️ can’t figure out how to share it. I️ suppose if I️ was on Facebook again that might do the telling for me?
I️ worked hard to reach out when we first moved, but that petered out after I️ went through a traumatic pregnancy loss moving company.. Now my new friends are all “grief friends.” Which sounds more depressing than it really is.
I’m really proud of myself for being able to reach out and cultivate new relationships, especially when it’s been such a difficult, tumultuous time for me. I went through life-upending loss and grief within my first year of living in a new state. Which is no small feat to survive, let alone come out with relationships. It brought me closer to some people, but more distant to others.
Anyway, I’m lucky to have made a few friends here, but I also really really miss my old friends in Ohio. Two years and 600 miles apart makes relationships hard to maintain. I wish I could go back to Ohio more. I wish I could afford to fly more. I wish a job didn’t have to dictate where we live.
I love where we live and I love Ohio and I just wish everything could be in the same place. I distinctly remember having this same feeling when I was living in Thailand in middle school – I just wanted to mash up Ohio and Thailand and have all the people and places I loved in the same place.
In sum, moving is hard and stupid and isolating, but there are lovely people everywhere.
