The Long Way Home

After college, I knew I needed to get out of North Carolina and was really itching to live in a ‘real’ city for a bit. We moved to Boston and absolutely loved living there while I was in grad school. After three winters and a small fortune spent on a one bedroom apartment, though, we happily moved back to NC for Matt to attend business school.

Fast forward two years, and Matt got a great job offer in Charlotte, NC.  We spent a weekend there, looking at apartments and hanging out with friends, and were thrilled to be settling down just 20 miles south of our alma mater.  But, at the last minute, Matt got an even better job offer and our Charlotte dreams went down the drain (for a good reason!). We had to quickly choose between a few cities, and picked Dallas randomly because it was warm and sunny, kinda the south, and we had good friends there who loved it.

Dallas was fabulous and exceeded our expectations – it’s where we lived after we were first married, bought our first house, had Em, and where I was happiest in my post-college life. It was my first adult home and I miss it all the time!!  But Matt and I often longed for NC beaches and mountains, to be closer to family and Davidson, and for east coast autumn; we always wondered what it would have been like if we had moved to Charlotte, and we felt a pull in that direction. So, Matt spent a lot of time searching for jobs in NC in 2017, but never quite found the right opportunity…and then the right opportunity found him, and here we are in NY! Now there’s a fun twist in the story…

Closing on our first house!

and all this goes to say, we are moving to Charlotte at the end of the year!!!  Matt’s company has an office there, and since he’s proven himself a rockstar (he worked his a** off this year!!), his boss is comfortable with the office transfer. We knew this was a possibility when he started, but had no idea if/when it would actually happen.

While I’ve grown very fond of Brooklyn, and will miss it quite a bit, returning to NC feels right for us. Plus, even if we wanted to stay, it’s too darn expensive here! Giving up our life in Dallas and moving to NY was a more difficult transition than I thought it would be; but it all seems worth it now – we just took the long way home.

Tree picture source.