For well over ten years I’ve dreamed of moving to the mountains, getting away from the heat of Florida. My partner also fell in love with the mountains after we starting vacationing in the Asheville area in 2018. That area became our dream, our goal. Since then we have watched the prices of real estate in that area skyrocket and become unaffordable. I started looking outside of the immediate Asheville area, which is more affordable. We’ve been working towards that goal, little by little, paying off debts, fixing our house, fixing ourselves, but things change, needs, wants, and goals change.
The social-political environment of the south has become unbearable for both of us. We are both tired of the near constant ignorance, hate, and hypocrisy. I genuinely fear for my well being, not immediately, but in the long run. I no longer want to live in the south, I no longer want to live somewhere that is actively trying to exclude groups of people. We’ll miss the winter weather and some of the people, but won’t miss the mediocre health care, fear, and hate.
Where will we go?
That is something that’s still in planning, but New England is most likely, possibly Massachusetts. High cost of living, but not as cold as Vermont, New Hampshire, or Canada, and the summers are wonderfully warm. Massachusetts actively welcomes LGBT, has many higher education institutes, and has excellent accessible health care services. Returning to New England also opens the possibility of re-visiting an old dream.
An old dream
A long, very long, time ago I had a dream to buy my own victorian home, a dream I put on hold when I moved back to Florida in 2004. It was a dream I’ve never fully given up on, but I was willing to leave it a dream so that my partner and I could enjoy our lives together in the Asheville area. There are victorians in the mountains, but finding one that’s affordable, in a safe area, and has good internet, is a challenge in the best market, and it might be years before these areas get anything better than slow satellite or dialup. It would be one of those dreams that maybe I would achieve later in life. Now the mountains of North Carolina are on hold, until a future when the social-political environment is less heated and violent.
My History
I grew up in a historic victorian neighborhood, helping my parents renovate and restore many homes in the area. I have had a passion for architecture since I was little and considered becoming an architect before settling on engineering. I love many different styles of architecture, there isn’t much I dislike, but my favorite is Victorian era, especially Queen Ann and Second Empire styles. After finishing my undergrad, while looking for a full time engineering job, I returned to my home city, moved back in with my parents, and worked managing restoration of another prominent victorian in my home neighborhood.
The work the team and I did on the house earned me an award from the local preservation trust. I would’ve loved to continue doing that work, but the pay was below what I could earn working tech support and living with my parents was starting to become a nightmare. I love my parents, but they’re conservative, narcissistic, and at the time, heavy drinkers. At this point I was willing to get a job doing almost anything computer related, engineering, tech support, web design, anything that would allow me to afford to move out of my parents house.
Putting dreams on the back-burner
Finding a job in the north east was not going well and the stress of living with my parents had become unbearable, so I left, returned to Florida where I had job opportunities. I was able to find a job, fairly low income compared to what my parents expected me to earn, but I could live on my own. I focused on my career, worked on my Master’s degree, focused on projects, but I’ve always longed for a historic home of my own. The part of Florida I’m in has a small number of victorians and older homes, but real estate prices were always out of my income range, it has worsened over the years.
I started looking towards the mountains of NC after a trip up in 2008 or 2009, housing prices were a little high in Asheville, but still affordable, if I could find the right job. Instead my career led me to South Florida and I moved further south, where real estate was even less affordable. I made the best of my time in SoFla, enjoyed some of my years there, but it seemed like my dreams were getting further away. The heat, cost of living, and needing to get squatters out of my house, pushed me back to Eastern Central Florida.
Never wanted to stay in Central Florida, but we are in a good location, able to fix our house slowly while paying off debts, and my partner has a good job in the area. Florida has never been ideal, environmental allergies and sun/heat related migraines are horrific at times, but I never feared living here until the last couple of years.
Why I fear the south
The last straw for me is the mounting attacks against transgender residents. Florida legislature, having already gone after trans children, is trying to institute rules and regulations which limit or eliminate transgender health care, a step in erasing transgender individuals, an act of genocide. They started by going after trans children and are now targeting trans adults. The state is pushing lies about trans healthcare and stoking fires of hate; misinformation like this has a body count.
I’ve received my first death threat a year and one half ago. It was an empty threat, sent out to many in my area, but it’s still unsettling. The social-environment environment of Florida has only worsened in the one and one half years since. I know many people with a variety of interests and beliefs, too many of them are supporting the hate, encouraging violence. These people are becoming more vocal, louder, and at times violent, claiming they are oppressed because they can’t impose their beliefs on others.
These people believe those who are different, who are queer in any way, are broken, sick, and in need of God. They believe there is a conspiracy to turn people gay or trans, to discredit any science that would prove their points, that science proving otherwise is doctored and fake, that there is a ‘new world order’ that democrats are forcing on the country, corrupting people. They are convinced that people choosing to be queer is due to brainwashing and peer pressure, and that allowing people who are trans to transition is a violation of their rights as a God fearing American. These people do not practice ‘live and let live’, they practice ‘my beliefs are your beliefs, even if you don’t want them’.
I used to believe that education could sway a person’s opinion, but that only works when people are willing to listen and learn, but it’s been some years since I’ve been able to have reasonable, rational, discussions. It feels like there’s a large number of people who reject science and research, claiming it’s biased and fake. These people cannot be reasoned with, they don’t want to believe evidence, instead cherry picking facts and at times denying reality. I already have to deal with this with my parents, I no longer have the energy to deal with others who are stubborn and ignorant.
Conclusion
I am ready to leave the ignorance and hate behind, to move back to an area that isn’t trying to genocide an entire minority group, to move back to a place where people are educated enough to be able to have educated discussions with minimal fear of becoming a target. I’m going to miss the warmth, but I’m ready to get the hell out of the south, find myself a nice victorian home to maintain or restore, set myself up a new lab, and focus on my family, job, and projects in peace.