Family (Friends) Values

If you've been reading my recent posts you've probably caught on to our deliberations about where to move next.  For the time being we're living in Anchorage with my parents, but are planning on moving in the next year.  I ran across this article the other day and it echoed and clarified a lot of thoughts I've had while mulling our move about in my mind.  It's a quick, short read so hop over and read it real fast.  I'll wait.

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In some ways it can feel a little depressing to think about how short life is and the limited time we have here on earth. But it also makes you really evaluate how you're spending your life.  We moved up to Anchorage for two pretty major reasons, 1. my healthcare, and 2. to be close to my family for their support.  We didn't know if we'd end up loving Anchorage and find a niche here, but it turns out we haven't and Anchorage doesn't feel like a great fit for our family.  But one of the big reasons is that we really miss our community in Tacoma.  Even though the grey, dim, soggy winters make me stabby, our friends in Tacoma are just so amazing.  My life long best friend lives in Tacoma (after I convinced her to move out to the PNW when she graduated college), and even this hermit introvert realized after leaving how many people I truly had connected with in my 5 years living there.  

Now, I know if we decided to plant roots here in Anchorage I could absolutely build a community here. But my parents are considering a move down to Portland (again, to be closer to family-- my two brothers live there), and if we moved back to Tacoma, that's only a couple hours away.

Anyway, all of that to say, all of these thoughts had been mulling about in my mind about what we should do, where we should move, and reading that article just condensed those thoughts into a very clear, succinct picture of why certain things really matter.  Because we aren't going to have forever with our best friends, parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.  Because proximity matters.  

So for now we're here in Alaska, but I think our time in the great north is coming to a close.  I always took pride in being an Alaskan girl, but while my roots are Alaskan, I've realized that I bloomed in the Pacific Northwest. And for my whole life I thought, having been raised in Alaska, that I'd want my kids raised in Alaska.  But that's not really important to me anymore.  I know how I want to raise my kid(s) and it doesn't have to be in Alaska.  

All that being said, this place is heartbreakingly stunning.  Having grown up here I think I'm blind to it in some ways, but films like this remind me of the utter magnificence and meaningfulness of the beauty of the landscape around me. And imagery like this isn't unusual.  I'm stunned on a daily basis by the colors of a sunrise (which I see so regularly now, nursing Jack in the wee hours of the morning), the hoarfrost on naked trees, the sunlight illuminating the mountain range on the borders of town.  It really is something else to be surrounded by natural beauty of this magnitude on a daily basis.