I worried that leaving New York City for a suburb out West would make me boring. It did the opposite.

To my surprise, I've loved the benefits of living in a suburb near Seattle.

Misha Scott

If you had asked me in high school where the most interesting people live, I would have had an immediate answer: the city.Namely, Los Angeles, New York, or maybe Chicago — the opposite of my extremely rural, 300-person hometown in eastern Washington state. So, as soon as I graduated, I moved to LA, in search of the exciting future that I was sure awaited me there.And I found it. In LA, I built a career in the film industry, made lifelong bonds with brilliant, creative people, and had the kinds of eye-opening, foundational experiences that I felt like only a major city could give me.A decade into my LA life, though, I started to tire of the soul-numbing commutes, the lack of open space, and what had started to feel like a Groundhog Day social life, in which I tended to visit the same bars, restaurants, and coffee shops day after day.I hoped that moving to New York with my partner in 2020 would be the refresh I needed, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I only found myself more overwhelmed and stressed as I learned to navigate a new city.The final straw came when our landlord significantly raised our rent, effectively forcing us out.After getting priced out of our New York City apartment, we received a lifelineOne day, my sister-in-law sent me a Facebook message asking me if we would consider moving into a house they owned in the Seattle area.