‘I swear, I’m never moving again for the rest of my life,” I remember saying to my wife 40 years ago.
“Right, Mike,” she said.
We had just moved from a smaller home to a bigger one, and the whole experience was a pain in the buttocks. I was tired and sore, and hoped this would be our forever home. It was the fifth change of ZIP codes during our marriage of six years, and as usual, we did the moves all by ourselves.
It is now 2023, and I have triple counted how many times I have moved over my lifetime to make sure this number is correct: 36. Many of them I had no control over — either my parents decided, or the Army did. Others were for career moves. And some of it happened with a “Why the hell not?” I once moved my family to the island of Nantucket and then thought, “What the hell was I thinking?”
And I almost always abided by the old saw “You can never, ever go back,” assuming I could never, ever move back to a place I once lived in. It just didn’t feel right. I fantasized it would disappoint me because of the changes that might have occurred during my absence.
We moved from the island of Nantucket to Bradford, Vt., in 1988, then to Hanover in 1991. I worked at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for 12 years. Then in 2001 we left for another state because of a career move. I hated to go, but the upward career change seduced me.
In 2011, though, we had to move briefly back to the Upper Valley (in Plainfield) for a family reason. We knew this was the right thing for us to do. And it worked out OK, but it temporarily violated my ‘you can never, ever go back’ rule.
And sure enough, there were some changes locally that were disorienting. For example, I rarely saw anyone I knew anymore. Most of my neighborhood friends and old colleagues at DHMC, for example, moved on or retired or worse, and many of my favorite eateries had closed.
But that problem resolved itself because we moved out-of-state once again in 2016.
But hold on. It is 2023, and we are back in the Upper Valley, again.
There have been some disappointing changes, indeed. The old Dartmouth Bookstore is gone. EBA’s in Hanover has closed. J.C. Penney and Kmart have departed, as has Salt Hill in West Lebanon. The roadwork on interstates 89 and 91 seems to be more disruptive than ever. And traffic on 12A continues to be fierce.
But the culture, hospitality, health care, education, and entertainment vibes around here are so much richer than when we first lived here.
For example, my wife and I feel good to be close to the expanded DHMC and its affiliates. I used the emergency room at APD, now an affiliate of DH, after a plastic dome on my hearing aid came off in my ear canal. The doctor unfolded a sterile kit, put on surgical gloves, and carefully removed the sucker. Before I could say thank you, he ordered me to stay seated.
“Wait. You’ve got something else in there,” he said with gravity. He then plucked out a second plastic dome, which, of course, I did not know was there or for how long. At least I could hear the doctor’s laughter a little better when he went out into the hallway.
But I digress.
My self-made rule of “You can never, ever go back” now sits in the pantheon of other pearl absolutes of mine that turned out to be duds, such as:
“When our children are born, we will never, ever use disposable diapers.”
“Bribe our kids with dessert? Never!”
“I will die before I shop at a Big Box!”
“I don’t ever see myself living in Lebanon.”
“I’ll never, ever move again.”
“I will never eat kale.” (Well, actually that rule still holds.)
Statistically, 36 moves over a lifetime equates to my having moved once every two years. Now, that is pure bunk, of course. I’ve never done anything every two years except add two years to my age.
As it turns out, the real question isn’t whether I could go back to where we once lived; rather, it’s why the heck did we leave the Upper Valley in the first place?
Mike Skinner lives in Lebanon. He can be reached at mikeandpams@comcast.net.