Over the past month or so, we have started to consider moving out of our townhouse in South Seattle and going somewhere else. We’re exhausted by the mailbox thieves, arsonists, and alley scavengers. New construction on our block was set on fire, and the house next to the blaze caught fire, but the residents escaped. We only had to deal with melted window seals and a small crack in our siding from the heat.

Worse than the physical damage of the fire is the sense that I’m not safe in my home. Someone is intentionally burning down construction sites without considering the potential collateral damage—not only to nearby buildings but also to the psyches of everyone in the neighborhood.

We bought the house in 2017 with the idea that a neighborhood would coalesce around the light rail station. Instead, we experienced a global pandemic, and about half of the businesses in the neighborhood disappeared. Development has been slow to start, and now it is getting torched.

So, despite the still-high interest rates and weird real estate market, we are considering other options. We’ve perused the Zillow listings within a reasonable commute of downtown Seattle, where my husband works in an office sometimes. We’ve accepted the fact that whatever we do is going to raise our housing cost, even for a cheaper house. We’ve debated over the viability of buying a fixer-upper. But we haven’t decided what to do or when.

The Fed is dangling a potential rate drop in the fall. There’s a presidential election that feels like an existential crisis in November. There’s a sense of employment insecurity, which has been going on for about 25 years. My company just laid off 10% of its employees. My husband has evaded more rounds of layoffs than I can count. We can’t afford to get into a housing situation that requires us both to keep our jobs because you never know.

Right now, we could both work fully remotely and keep our current jobs. If we move somewhere farther from an urban center, we limit our options when one of us needs to find a new job. I’m not confident that I can find another fully remote job in my field if this one goes away.

We eventually want to retire to Europe, but we are still years away from retirement. On a recent weekend in North Idaho, we had a somewhat wild idea: What if we moved to my childhood home? I could help out with my aging relatives and have access to my favorite lake. Maybe I could replace my bad memories with some new, happy ones.

The thought of living in North Idaho again fills me with dread and despair that is hard to explain. Coeur d’Alene is a beautiful town with a high quality of life. It has a vibrant, if somewhat touristy, downtown, a decent hospital, a cool record store, and nature everywhere. But, for me, the defining moment of my life was the moment I got the hell out of there when I was 18. How could I possibly go back?

And here we have Idaho

My home state is becoming increasingly popular with celebrities and retirees looking to escape the traffic and crime of California. Sun Valley has been a popular celebrity getaway for decades, and North Idaho is starting to catch up. Kim Kardashian bought a house on Lake Coeur d’Alene, and she’s often spotted on the lake or in town with her family.

Coeur d’Alene is no longer the mill town I grew up in back in the 1970s. Old-timers like my Grandpa bristled at the change when the mill was replaced by a golf course. The other mill has now been swapped for million-dollar riverfront condos. I almost cannot afford to live in my hometown.

My cousin moved back a couple of decades ago, and he and his wife are remote workers with a second house in Tucson for the harsh Idaho winters. We visit every summer, and I am increasingly open to living in North Idaho again. The remainder of my small family are there. Now that the internet exists, I would not be cut off from culture and progressive thinking like I was in the 1980s. The town is cute and very livable.

As long as I can keep my remote job, I could live there. But every cell in my body is telling me that I cannot move back. It feels like going backward, even if it could be better than it was. Maybe I could erase some of my own bias and negativity by building a better life in my hometown. Or maybe I would be miserable there.

The people tho

The Trump flags were not as prevalent this summer as in 2016. We didn’t visit in 2020 for obvious reasons, but my cousin’s wife told me it feels less in your face this time. The political vitriol may have calmed a bit, but I know moving to Idaho would mean moving to Trump-land. It would mean living in a place that has essentially outlawed abortion and where every pickup contains several weapons of war.

My people are there, too. The family I grew up with and their no-nonsense, progressive, libertarian values. They quietly live their lives without putting up any political signage. They quietly vote for candidates who care about helping the poor and providing healthcare to everyone. If I lived there, I would quietly seek out progressive pockets, but the culture is more aggressively right-wing than when I left in 1990.

At least the Aryan Nation HQ closed down. The white supremacist group was an ever-present menace of my childhood, but they got sued out of their real estate in the nineties. I’m not sure if the town still grudgingly hosts a Nazi parade each year, but the white power crowd is still around. Now they have a creepy, orange figurehead to rally around.

I don’t like the idea of living in a place where I have to low-key hide my values in order to avoid arguments with people who carry assault rifles. On the other hand, isn’t it better to get out of my liberal bubble and bring my values with me?

Interesting rates

We have a very low interest rate on our mortgage. We refinanced at the lowest of the low rates before the pandemic and have grown rather attached to our affordable monthly payment in the middle of a very unaffordable city. The wise, frugal part of my brain implores me to stay for as long as possible or until the interest rates drop significantly.

The wise, frugal part of my brain seldom wins an argument, but this time it might. If we move anywhere right now, our monthly housing costs will increase. Even if we can take out a smaller mortgage on a cheaper house, our monthly payment will be more than it is now. Plus, we want to move before selling our current home, which means a double mortgage for a short time.

My wise, frugal brain is freaking out a little about this idea, and it is hard not to listen.

The psychology of distance

The thing about moving closer to my family is that I would be…closer to my family. My cousin and I are the only two in our generation, and neither of us has kids. I can tell he’d like some help managing his parents as they inch toward their eighties. He pointed out several houses for sale on their block. If I moved there, I could check in on them every day.

My mom is in assisted living about an hour north of Coeur d’Alene. I would be close enough to see her every so often but not so close that she could show up at my house. It still feels too close. Several hundred miles has always felt like a good cushion between me and my mom. The closer I am, the more space she seems to occupy in my brain.

In other words, it might be good for my family if I move back, but I’m not sure it would be good for me. Yes, I like the idea of helping. But I fear the proximity might erode my mental health.

Indecision decision

A few days ago, someone spread trash around the alley our living room windows overlook. This is not the first time we’ve seen a mess in the alley. A few months ago, someone left a defunct electric wheelchair alongside what appeared to be a pile of human hair and some freshly laundered hospital gowns.

The property owner next to us removed his shabby and inert RV only to replace it with a mysterious shipping container. The shipping container has become a magnet for graffiti artists. I enjoy the urban vibe, but the chaos is wearing me out.

Every time I receive a package, I feel like I’ve won a small battle. Our “secure” package box was crow-barred open earlier this year, and I took the time to reattach the door. It felt pointless, but we can’t let the porch bandits win.

I wish I could pick up my house and its lovely interest rate and move it to a quiet, leafy street. With another room or two, so we could have adequate office and gym space. In a neighborhood where I can walk to cafes and have organic produce delivered.

Have I become a bougie white lady? I guess I have. The older I get, the less I enjoy confronting dudes with face tattoos trying to steal our neighbor’s lawnmower.

We’ve decided not to decide for now. We will see what the Fed does about interest rates. We will wait to see who is president after November. If it’s Trump again, I don’t know that I could stomach living among his people in Idaho.

Once my 53rd birthday rolls around in November, I want to know roughly when and where we will move, even if that’s Portugal in 2030. Or maybe we will try digital nomadism and rent while we figure out a longer-term plan. The key is to decide, even if we decide to change our minds later.