Eighteen Year Anniversary - Midwest to DC

Our grandson was three years old; he just turned twenty-one this month. It was eighteen years ago also this month that we moved from the Midwest - where we lived for thirty years - to DC. At the time we thought the tiny 500 square foot condo that we bought on Capitol Hill just down the street from our son and DIL would be used for routine visits - and not become our permanent hime. We left behind all of our friends, colleagues and a 2500 square foot home with an acre of land. I found a walk to work job at the Library of Congress which was a very unusual thing indeed since my career had been in health care. Now I am retired eight years already and we moved to northern Virginia five years ago. I oftentimes wonder if I would rather be back in the Midwest - especially since our family moved to central Virginia and after the pandemic upended all of our lives. We still go in to the city at least once a week because my husband loves it and it’s a good opportunity to get photos for my weekly photo challenge. But I do miss our friends and the old home and our beautiful borzoi Tatiana. We haven’t been traveling like we used to and so we are sort of “stuck.” We used to visit the Midwest every year and take overseas trips to visit family. It’s not all that bad, but I just don’t have the conversations I used to and we don’t socialize that much even though the condo here does have events now and again. It’s just not the same. I know I don’t miss the snow and the ice, but I never lived there without having to work in it. I know if we tried to go back it would never be the same. That’s just how it is.