I had an interesting conversation a few days ago. I needed new checks, and I almost never use them or cash, but there you have it. I had just used the last one and thought it might be nice to have a few of those buggers on hand. So I called. The gentleman asked me to confirm my address and I said I lived in Huntsville, AL. I paused and then said...unfortunately. That was what sparked the conversation.
Now before all of my Huntsville friends freak out, I'm the one who nudged Gwyne to move here, based on our own mutually agreed upon list of things we value in a place to live. They were weighted on a scale of 1 - 10 using an x/y matrix. During our talks, Gwyne would express doubt about a possible Huntsville move and I always said, “If you have a better suggestion/idea, I’m completely open.” Whenever I asked for better ideas, the silence was deafening. We started off resolving that there is no perfect place to live, BUT, these are things that we valued and rated:
1. Convenient (we are not people who want to live the rural life)
2. Close to a hub airport (we like to travel and have family all over, hub airports also have better fares)
3. Easy to use efficient mass transit available, desire to go carless (99% me)
4. Bicycle friendly (all on my part)
5. Money is an object (there are more desirable places to live than HSV if money weren’t an object)
6. Not cold and not oppressively hot - temperate climate
7. Close to the ocean (99% Gwyne)
8. Good medical facilities
9. Relatively safe
10. Relatively low rate of natural disasters
11. Strong economy
12. Good water supply (100% me)
13. Like minded people
14. Business friendly (as defined by the Economist)
I think we missed on 3, 4, 7 and 13.
3 - (my) Desire to go carless. We do get by quite easily with only one car, we’re within walking distance of a Super Target.
4 - Bicycle friendly. Hard miss. Santa Barbara is bicycle (mostly e-bikes for slackers these days) friendly. Boulder, same but without the e-bike madness. Crazy bike/pedestrian paths there and you can go wherever you want - easily - without a car. Huntsville. Not.bicycle.friendly.
7 - Close to the ocean (that was Gwyne). We’re not in Kansas, but we’re not close either.
13 - Like minded people. Whoopsie! Huntsville is no bastion of liberal democracy, and 5 minutes outside of Huntsville and you can hear the banjos playing. Swinggg (and a miss!)
Back to the conversation. He asked, “Why Huntsville?” I told him about our list and said we were looking for permanent home base. In our mid 50’s (back then) time to settle down, eh? We were living just outside of DC and loved it, but I refer you to item number 5 on our list. It’s stupid expensive to live in and around DC. I told him that the move was sparked because of something that didn't appear on our list. I said my wife is an extreme FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and I’m on the other end of the spectrum, a committed member of team JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out). We know more people in Huntsville, AL than anywhere in the world, and that's really important to Gwyne. And he said, "You have just described EXACTLY my relationship with my girlfriend, man, how do you make that work? My girlfriend is always wanting to go out and hang out with people and she's all political on FaceBook." I wanted to ask him if he had been following Gwyne's FB posts. We all have political opinions/leanings but she likes to splat hers out to the world on FB, TikTok these days as well. I told him I love my wife for who she is, what she does and how she thinks. And she loves me for who I am, what I do and what I think. We’re very different, and we acknowledge that. I encourage her to be who she is, go out and have lunch with her friends and she recognizes that isn’t my gig and lets me be happy in my tight friend bubble. I said all you can do is love your partner and find a balance that works for you. Listening and compromise are pretty big components of making things work as well.
He paused and said, "Wow. That’s something else. When I get married, I'm going to say this guy named Alan made it possible." I said, “Hey, keep my name out of it. But I hope you find something that works for you and her. This works for us. It may not work for you. But don’t forget, there are two of you.”
Now. How about some of those checks, just in case I need one again someday, k?
