I have recently realized that, due to work and life, I've been traveling a good deal lately, and if anything is going to kick my brain back into gear, it's writing about something, and that is the thing I have the most thinks to write about. As a result, I am considering trying to write a semi-regular sub-blog, as the City Druid takes to the air- and road-ways.
My most recent trip was the one from which I returned yesterday. I spent a week in Denver after moving back to Georgia three months ago.
Let me tell you, returning to a place you didn't really want to leave can be....eye-opening.
Some background: I have lived in Georgia for all but about two years of my life: 1995 and 2016. In 1995, I lived in Nashville, TN, where we moved because my (then) husband wanted to work with his dad. I even got my company to hire me in the original store in Nashville, Service Merchandise, Broadway at 2nd in Downtown Nashville.
I liked Nashville a lot, but never felt particularly attached to it. We finally bought a car after about four months, so I got to explore it more than I could on The Metro (and no, there was no train system--just busses) but it was actually less than a year, so I never really developed habits, friends, fun places to go....and then we moved back to Georgia.
In 2008, I got a temp job at an insurance company, just before the financial markets (of which insurance is a giant part) went kablooie, and spent several nerve-wracking months before the company hired me on permanently. It took them 13 months, which puts me at close to a record for our company. I've been there ever since.
My division has, in the time I've been in it, had offices in Alpharetta, GA, New York, NY, Chicago, IL, Dallas, TX and Denver, CO. New York and Chicago didn't last, because the underwriters in those offices didn't, but I grew an urge, starting a couple of years after I started working with underwriters, to move to the Denver office. Finally, two years ago, the decision was made to hire an underwriting services (my job) person for that office. I ended up flying to Denver to train the first hiree.
I flew out to a city I'd never visited, alone, and trained a person that....was not cut out for modern office work. She lasted a full week after I came back to Georgia. (I flew to her because she was afraid of flying.) Then there was the second one, who sounded like the perfect fit, and came to me for training.
Unfortunately, she apparently felt she was too good for the job, so, when she quit and I was sent to "fix her mess" after three months, I got more done in the first day I was there than she did in her entire three months.
Once I returned from "fixing the mess," I suggested that Denver needed someone who already knew the job, and offered myself. It took a few months to replace me in the Alpharetta office--my co-worker in Alpharetta chose that time to retire, so I ended up training two people--but I was on my way to Denver within four months.
I loved it. I liked my co-workers in the Denver office, even though, after my company bought another giant insurance company and changed its name to the other company's, they moved us into the other company's offices. I liked the new office. I liked the new people. I liked Denver. I liked almost everything about the new situation....except the cost. My tiny apartment for my family of three cost more than the huge house we had previously rented in Atlanta, and was approximately 1/6 the size. The Green Rush may have been great for the Colorado economy, and brought in a ton of tax money, but it also resulted in real estate price gouging.
Well, I asked to be transferred back, with the honest reason of lack of affordability, and was granted it.
After I moved to Denver, my department was relocated in the building, so it's been a trifle awkward, and there are some different people, so it's just not been the same. When I was allowed to fly back to work in the Denver office for a week, I was pretty excited.
I swear, going back to a place you moved away from recently, that you didn't really want to leave, is a weird feeling. I still remembered how to get around (it's only been three months), and we tried to get to a few of the places we'd promised ourselves we'd visit (we managed a couple), but it was so....familiar and comfortable. At work, they welcomed me with open arms. One of the....gruffer underwriters even told me it was good to see me, and I've never heard him talk to ANYONE that way (after sitting right behind him for a full year.)
The odd part was that, while we were staying near my work, we kept gravitating towards the neighborhood where we lived. This has made me wonder.
If anyone actually reads this, perhaps you could satisfy my curiosity, and answer this question for me:
If you have lived in other cities, if you return after moving away, to you avoid, or gravitate towards, the areas in which you lived? Does it matter how long you lived there, or how long since you visited? I know when I visited Nashville last, I was completely lost, and had no idea where some things were any longer, because I hadn't lived there in 21 years.
So, how about you?
