How would you handle this?

Hi I'm wondering if any of you have moved away from somewhere you basically liked to somewhere 500 miles away and do not like? I feel so trapped having moved close to my aging mom and some family but I cannot seem to really like this place/state, etc and feel like a fish out of water after seven years here. AT this time I know I will move back once mom passes (she's in good health now) but every day I think about the old haunt and wish I could be back there. I'm retired and single. Could this be part of a larger issue? I welcome your thoughts thank you

Hi, Riptide. I'm in a situation very similar to yours...single, retired, left a city I loved to be near my aging mom. My mom is now in a nursing home, where I visit her fairly often. I've been here for 20 years and think about returning to the other place when possible. The thing I have to remember is that my old "haunt" is not the same place it was 20 years ago, and I might feel displaced there. I try to remember to "bloom where I'm planted," and to realize that there are just as many opportunities here for pleasure as there would be anywhere else, although it seems at times that I'm a fish out of water. Thinking about being happier somewhere (anywhere) else is pretty defeatist, so I try not to dwell there.

I'm actually really scared of ending up in this position. I'm going off to university this year and I'm going to be really, really far away from home. It'll be my first time on my own. I know I feel really overwhelmed when I think about all that, so I can imagine you must be feeling somewhat similarly.

I think it happens to a lot of people in unfamiliar settings. I don't have any advice, but I'm sending good vibes your way.

It seems like it's a sign that you don't care for where you live now. Do you really have to stay there?

My situation is a little different yet similar emotions would exist now.

I grew yo in So. Calif. Los Angeles county. I actually lived for 54 years in that same area & hated it the whole time. Bad marriage I left after 33 years & moved 2100 miles away to a little farm I bought in a state where I knew ABSOLUTELY NO ONE. HOWEVER, I have met the most wonderful people & am involved in our little community & the area. I have so fallen in love with my new home & area & it is the happiest I have ever been in my life. I know that leaving here would make me seriously feel the way you are feeling & I finally understand for the first time in my life how important it is to be happy where we are living.

Shoot, if your mom is healthy maybe yiu could consider moving back & just visit.

Is moving back to where you used to live an option?

I'm in a love-hate relationship with where I live at the moment but I can't move because one of my two cats is too poorly to be moved anywhere

Yes. I have moved to a place where I disliked it so much that I became depressed. I moved to that place because my then husband got out of the military and he got a job in said place. After 10 years in said place we divorced and I moved to another state.
I have also moved to a place I disliked in order to take care of my mother. Luckily for me, I ended up with a health problem and needed to move to another state to take care of myself.

We moved to 3 different states before we moved back to this state. The next time we move, it will be to live on a beach property.