Look Out, Wisconsin

I couldn’t wait to leave. That’s what I wrote on bio on this website after describing my charmed life growing up in small-town Wisconsin. And it was the truth. I loved, loved my family, but I had that familiar brand of teenage angst where I felt like I didn’t belong. I’d hibernate with my depression through the winters and count the days until I could go to school as far away as possible. Leaving for Boston, the furthest away of all my classmates at the time, felt like a victory. It was a victory.

It’s been ten years since I left Wisconsin. Four years in Boston finding true belonging for the first time followed by six years in Austin finding myself. I have built homes in places I started off a stranger and fought for friendships that make me a better human. I lost the boy I loved. And figured out I loved girls too. I came out. I got tattoos. I surprised myself with my own career ambition and cultivated a community and culture in the workplace I love.

All of this to say, after a decade, I have decided to move back to Wisconsin. Not my hometown, but rather Door County (Egg Harbor), the peninsula where we visited each summer and since college it’s been where I’ve gone on breaks to my parents’ cottage (and now their permanent residence). It’s where when I close my eyes and think of a happy place I am sitting by the lake listening to waves hit the rocks. It’s where my parents are just down the road and my brother and sister-in-law are a few hours south and three of my best friends are a drive away in the midwest.

I have wrestled with this decision for years — the winters, the lack of city amenities, the spiders, the winters, a less diverse population, the winters, zero job prospects, and of course the goddamn winters.

When I got divorced, I decided to stay in Austin for my job which I still have and love, but I think on a deeper level I didn’t want to feel like I was running away. I could’ve gone back to Boston where my friends were or back home to my parents then, but I stayed. I’m glad I did, even though those were hard years at first. Now leaving Austin doesn’t feel like I’m running away from anything, but rather that I’m running towards what’s important to me.

My family. The open spaces. A smaller community where I can contribute and make an impact. A chance to bring myself to my home state (my radical feminist, gay-ass self). My family, my family, my family.

Call it pandemic perspective, but I have lived so many of my most important relationships virtually for nearly this whole decade. A four-year long-distance relationship with my then-fiancé followed my long-distance friendships with my closest friends, and my family long-distance all the while. Once work all went virtual this spring, it became painfully obvious to me that I had my priorities all flipped around.

Credit to my job and my boss: they are letting me work remotely permanently in my role as head of HR. I have communicated openly since last year about my desire to eventually move back to Wisconsin, and when I asked (with trepidation) my boss (company president) responded with amazing support and an attitude of “let’s figure this out.” In the past month, that’s all I’ve been met with at work, and we’re now having serious conversations about being a more remote company as a whole.

This is a bit of a miracle. I can continue working (supporting myself financially while also being a part of a culture I’ve had a hand in building over the last six years) while living in Door County.

This decision to move has been expectedly met with some grief. Like I said, I built a life in Austin. I have made friends here I hope to keep forever. It was awful telling them I’m leaving and I know that I’m going into a small town in the middle of a pandemic where I will continue to have to maintain exclusively virtual friendships for a while. I am going to miss my life in Austin, I know I will. It’s tempered only by the knowledge that I will be back, most likely four or five times a year (post-pandemic) since my work is still based here.

And I can’t believe I’m turning this into another She-Ra post, but I want to close on the story of how this decision finally clicked into place for me. I watched the series finale of She-Ra when it premiered on Netflix on May 15th and I have never in the history of any show or book I read been so lit up with disbelieving joy. I didn’t know I could have what I wanted. The next morning I ran fifteen miles high off that energy and that night, Facetiming with my friends Lin & Cara, it got real when then asked me how I was and gently told me maybe I should move back. They so rarely give me direct advice, and I heard them but I just couldn’t see how I could make it work with my job.

That Sunday I stayed in bed nearly all day, crying on and off. Browsing She-Ra fanart. Looking at real estate. Thinking. She-Ra echoed in my head.

We must be strong. We must be brave.

What do you want, Adora?

I want to go home. I want to stop having to be strong when I’m sick because no one’s there to take care of me. I want to be loved in a way I can see and feel every day. I want to plant my feet where I want to be and reach out my arms from there for whatever love will come into my life. That must be what it means to be grounded. That must be what it means to be strong because I am tired of thinking being alone is strength, or at least, being alone forever.

That’s my word of the year: Strength. And today it means building up a life again, but doing it this time with my core connections closer. My family matters and no matter what the future brings I know I will not regret taking the chance to be closer with them.

I woke up that Monday with a calm clarity and talked to my boss that week.

So look out Wisconsin, this July, I’m coming home.

With Love,
Natalie