Why Florida?

Today we closed on the sale of our house in Georgia. We had lived there 10 years and our previous house we had occupied for 25 years. My wife Carol was born in Georgia and, in fact, had never lived anywhere else but the city in which she was born. I, on the other hand grew up a military brat and had lived in six different states before I was 17. During my corporate career I had headhunters contact me occasionally about positions in other parts of the country. I never seriously considered any of them because Carol just didn't want to leave home.

In 2017, Florida, once again, had the largest net gain of retirees move there.... almost 78,000. It's almost a cliche that when you retire you are supposed to move to Florida. Some have joked that it is the law in New Jersey.... when you turn 65 you must move to Florida. My grandmother retired in Florida. During my many visits and an entire summer staying with her in 1972, I came to the conclusion that I would never want to live in Florida. Visiting Florida, especially in the winter, is wonderful. But to live there? No way.

So, guess where I am right now? Many of our friends know what is going on in our life. The good news is that we have two grandchildren (oh yeah... and their parents) that are currently living in Florida. My son-in-law is a helicopter pilot in the Coast Guard; which is why they are here. I won't elaborate on the not-so-good news but, most of our friends are familiar with it.

About a year ago, I came home from work and Carol said, "I have an idea. Why don't we sell the house and move down to Florida for two years so we can be near Jessica and Matt (and our grandson... [our granddaughter hadn't been born yet]) while Matt is stationed in Florida?" This was spoken by the woman who has lived in the same city for the last... well, her entire life. So, after picking myself up off the floor, I thought about it and said, "You know...why not? We can do that." (Honestly, if Carol had asked me to take her to Timbuktu I would have tried to make that happen... Florida was a piece of cake compared to Mali.)

Pulling up roots isn't easy though. All of our closest friends are in Georgia. Our church home and church family are in Georgia. I had a job I enjoyed in Georgia. Our son is in Georgia and Carol's sister and her husband are just across the river in SC...only a few miles away from where we lived.

Almost exactly 6 years ago I wrote a blog titled "Where's Home?" Here's a link to it.  In that blog I attempted to describe what we mean when we refer to "home." Georgia was home. How could we leave everything that was familiar? Could Florida really be home, even if it was only for a couple of years?

Just like I wrote six years ago, home, for me, is wherever Carol is... and where my family is. For three years Jessica and Matt were 7,000 miles away in Korea. Now we had the chance for them to have some family that wasn't 7,000 miles away or, even in the best case, 7 hours away. We are now more like 7 minutes away. Our hope was that we could be helpful to them as they raise a 2 1/2 yr old and a 3 month old.

Why Florida? I think you get the picture. This is home for now.