I grew up in a city near Cleveland, OH. I used to be just fine living there. But as I got older, I wanted a change in my life. I feel like most people want to see more of the world outside their hometown. People in Utah always tell me how beautiful and green Ohio is and I always tell them about impressive the mountains and desert are. The grass really does seem greener on the other side.
I lived in Ohio since I was born. Once I graduated college, I decided to move to Indiana next door. I was ready for the change and a big boy job. The liquor laws there were so much more relaxed and it was pretty entertaining. Over time though, I knew I would want to make a major leap to the west side of the US. I was growing tired of the Midwest with all its allergy inducing plants, constant rainstorms, and dreadful humidity. Also, let’s be honest. The way you rate a city in the Midwest is by how many bars and restaurants it has so that you can eat and drink the boredom away. Or play some video games. I’m being a tad harsh of course, but that was the way I started to see things.
One day, a year and a half after moving to Fort Wayne, I got an offer from a company in Utah. I had actually forgotten that Utah was even a state. It was far off of my radar for moving west. But I decided to give it a shot (also this was when I started hating my job). So I packed a bunch of my stuff into a small trailer and headed west (which is a story on its own for another time).
I remember once we were driving through Morgan Valley, it felt like my eyes were burning. I still don’t really know why. It wasn’t till later that I learned Utah actually has some bad allergens. Not to mention my eyes probably weren’t used to the dry air as well. But the site of the mountains were so awe inspiring. Everything here seemed so amazing. That’s when I quickly learned about Utah’s strange 3.2 liquor laws. It made no sense to me, but I learned from the locals and dealt with it.
Utah itself is another story, but here is the part that gets me about moving. I had absolutely no friends. Now I’m an introvert. I used to get tired of seeing people all the time and listening to their petty stories about absolutely nothing. People annoyed me, so I thought being out here all by myself was going to be the best. And it actually was for awhile. I started making a few friends at my new job. But somehow, someway I managed to find people who were flaky. Most of them only really seemed to pretend to be my friend. And once I quit that job to leave for another, I never heard from them again.
My new job (which was literally on the other side of the air force base) didn’t really make anything better. Sure my coworkers were non-Mormon and liked to have a few drinks, but they were 1600 miles away. That’s right, I worked for a company that was based in Ohio! They needed a liaison at Hill to do better business with the air force. But the issue was that I was never really introduced to anyone and the building I was put in was isolated from the rest of the base. Literally no one would come by unless they came for a tour. I sat in that building for hours everyday with no human contact other than a few phone calls. It was so quiet there. I really liked it at first.
But then, I felt like I started to lose my mind. I refused to accept the fact that humans were social creatures. I was different… right? Wrong. My depression only really got worse which then turned into hatred and anger. I couldn’t even remember how to really communicate with other people anymore. I thought I was doing fine from my point of view, but in reality I was starting to hit a dark point in my life. It wasn’t until a little over a year after starting that job that I realized that I was actually suffering. But then, our company finally decided to hire some technicians. I’m not normally a social person, but when we hired some people that were going to work with me, I couldn’t stop talking. Not to mention that these four technicians were so down to Earth and level headed. It felt amazing to be talking to normal human beings again. But of course, fate had other plans. Despite the fact that I met some great people. I knew I couldn’t stay at that job. I wasn’t doing any sort of engineering. If I wanted to grow as an engineer, I would have to leave. And I really didn’t want to stay in Utah. The nanny state was getting to me. I just didn’t want to do calculus in my head just to order a beer or a cocktail.
That’s when I got an offer in Arizona. I admit, I still miss those guys and their wacky conversations. But I am glad to be out of Utah. In all honesty, if it weren’t for the strange laws, Utah would be the perfect place to live. But alas, it is still decades behind the other states. But now I’m in Phoenix and loving it! This is the first time I’ll be living in the downtown area of a city. There are so many people to meet. Maybe this time I’ll try a little harder to make some new friends. For now, I’m still settling in and getting used to my new environment.
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