Help & advice please... How does a Place become home?

selloptape

Hi everyone,

Just hoping for some advice and suggestions

I've lived on the outskirts of a small city for over ten years now but I still don't feel at home here. The work opportunities are okay, I have a few friends here now and have bought a house so should be positive, right?

It just feels like something is missing, I don't feel part of a community, my family are all several hours travel away and all live in much more expensive areas that I can't afford. Also where I live now is an easy distance for my son to stay in touch with his dad so I feel that I need to stay for my son's sake.

Not sure if I'm being a bit miserable about it and need to just get on with it - how long should it normally take to settle in a new place?

Does anyone have any ideas of things I can try?

Or do I just accept that I don't love the area and just count down the years til my sons older and I can move somewhere else?

Thank you x

pickledonionspaceraider

I think 'home' means different things to each of us. To me, it would be the reasons I moved their in the first place, ie to be near family, friends etc

Can i ask why you moved to that particular area? It sounds like your son has ties to the area, but maybe you don't

I would say after ten years, if it's not home, it might never be - and you should look to sort it if you're not happy - lifes too short

missbiggles1

Is it the house or is it the area?

heuchera

Is there another area you prefer and know you would be happy in?

I must admit, reading your post, I don't LOVE the area I'm in, either! It's very trendy but the people aren't that friendly and I don't have much in common with them. It used to be a nice sleepy little seaside town but it now attracts the slebs and the wannabes, people who are quite pretentious and up themselves.


I would ideally like to be nearer to family as I rarely get to see them, but they live near the Capital and I don't want to live there either :rotfl: I guess wherever you are there's going to be good and bad things about your situation.

jackyann

I think you have begun the process.

You are just asking generally, and not for practical advice, but in your position I would be asking myself:

Can I, given my work / financial situation realistically move, and if so where?
How would that impact on my son?

If you think that you can move and manage your lives, then begin to look around, not necessarily near your family, but somewhere that might suit better.

If not, you might just look very nearby - I am amazed at how quite a short move can make a difference.

You don't say how old your son is. I found that I made friendships and became part of a community through children's activities - from playgroup through to school fund raisers, sports clubs and youth organisations.

moneyistooshorttomention

I quite deliberately checked out what groups/activities there would be that I might meet new friends. I throw myself into lots of different things and figure that if I add an extra good friend per every other activity and they have made friends too and we "swop and change introducing our new friends to each other" and so on and so then a social circle builds up bit by bit. Seems to be working so far for the location I moved to a couple of years back.

I am getting the house I bought, as far as possible, in the style of my own home area - as that's what I am used to. Inside the house is nearly pure Home Area style now and that helps a lot - as it felt really offputting to start with (between being a right uninhabitable dump and in such a different style to my own).

I tell myself "Rome wasn't built in a day" and its a work in progress. I'd still go back if finances allowed - but it is what it is and I'm getting house and lifestyle together that are as similar as possible to what I would have in my own area.

I think that's probably part of it - ie re-creating Your Own Life and way your house is all over again as near as possible to what you are used to personally. That's my opinion. Others may do things very differently. Each to their own.

Callie22

Neither myself nor OH live anywhere near our families - mainly due to cost and work. I wouldn't say that the town I live in now feels like 'home', but tbh I'm not sure I know what that means. When I go 'home' that doesn't really feel like 'home' either!

We've been here for about six years now and I'd say that we feel comfortable and know the town well enough, but we do struggle to think of it as 'our hometown'. I think our housing situation has had a lot to do with that as we rented for a long time and moved practically every year. Everything felt very temporary for a long time. We bought a house last year and we're just about beginning to feel more settled, and a big part of that is making our house somewhere that reflects our tastes and personalities. Having that bit more stability means that we can feel a bit more invested in the area and we're now just about starting to consider joining clubs etc, which I think will help us feel more settled.

However, I do think that home is what you make it, and if you don't want to settle somewhere then you never will. I think too that you have to work out if it's the area you don't like or if it's something about yourself - you're the one thing you always take with you, wherever you go ...

enthusiasticsaver

Sometimes it takes time for a place to feel like home. We moved away from family about 26 years ago to the other end of the country and every time we visited them for the next few years it was like we were going home rather than the house we lived in. Over the years that changed though gradually as we did things to our current house, redecorated, our children started school and we made good friends and now I can't imagine living anywhere else. One of my daughter has bought a house up in the Midlands and I think she still feels like she is coming home when she comes back here but she has done a lot to her house and has friends and her job up there so she just says she has two homes.


You will probably find one day you just start to think of your house as home. Do you know the neighbours or have friends nearby? If you invite friends over for a meal or small parties that might help you feel more settled.

longwalks1

My first house felt like home, even though I only spent 3 nights a week there while I worked away, it was peaceful, quiet and I only had 1 neighbour an elderly woman. I lived there for 3 years, and it was a 'home'. Don't know why though? My 2nd home I was in for 10 years and it never felt like home, it was close to where I worked at the time, and I let 2 rooms (maybe because of this it didn't feel like home?)

Home is a different meaning to all of us remember. We all have a favourite holiday destination (I have 3) that we call 'home', so personally I think home is the feeling you get

suki1964

The house I live in now is home - 500 miles from where I was born and raised

because Im content with what I have

I have a loving husband, grandkids not a million miles away, good friends and Im part of a really close community

seven-day-weekend

When I lived in Spain, for eight years, neither the house nor the village ever felt like home. It was a wonderful place to live, and my house was beautiful, but it wasn't home, it was just a place where I lived. The little terraced edge-of-city house that we had left behind in England was my home.

We returned from Spain (just because it was time to return, not for any negative reasons), and have now sold the terraced house and moved into a bungalow. This IS home, just as much as the other house was.

I don't know why some places feel like home and others don't, but I will say that you can be happy somewhere that is not home, providing there is the chance of coming 'home' somewhere in the future.