The author and her family decided to move back to the Northeast while she was pregnant with her second child. She said she realized it was important to be near family.
Courtesy of Morgan Flaherty.
Shortly after college, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I moved several states away. We had both grown up and lived our entire lives up until that point in the Northeast, he in New York and me in Connecticut. But now, in our early 20s, we wanted a change. When he was offered a job in Florida, we saw it as the perfect opportunity to gain some independence.We did so pretty successfully for nearly a decade. During our time in Florida, we got engaged, got married, adopted a cat, held a variety of jobs, and sheltered through a pandemic. All the while, we only really got to see our families a few times a year. In a weird way, it felt like a point of pride. I felt like we had accomplished so much in a state far away from our families, proving we could be independent and on our own.However, things changed in 2022, when we welcomed our daughter to the world, and I started to question whether being far from family was still worth it.
The author said she started questioning a return to the Northeast after her first child was born.
