What would your life have been like?

[Ultralight]

What would your life have been like if you had stayed in your hometown? Or what might your life have been like if you had left your hometown?

I ask because I thought very seriously about this "alternate history" on July 4th when I went back to my hometown for the day.

Would I have married a big Midwestern single mom who often dressed in over-sized Looney Tunes t-shirts and high-water sweatpants and chain-smokes?

Would I have ridden that horrible roller-coaster of manufacturing jobs that goes boom and bust (mostly bust)?

Would I have many of the same problems my friends from old neighborhood have? Drugs? Alcohol? Child-support payments? Kids I find out too late aren't biologically mine? Petty crime?

[ToomuchStuff]

You want me to guess what it would have been based on nearly infinite variables? Stayed in the town I was born in.

[Ultralight]

You want me to guess what it would have been based on nearly infinite variables?

Yup!

[iris lilies]

I can’t imagine staying in that town where I last lived in Iowa, my hometown. I dislike it. I do not, however, mind the immediate area so I would have moved someplace around there if I am playing this game. Des Moines is an OK city. It has pockets of architecture that interest me. Des Moines suburbs have no architecture of value or interest, they are a barren wasteland of post WWII houses, most of which hurt my eyes.My hometown has especially egregious suburban architecture since it was never a place where many middle-class or any upper middle class moved, it was always mostly blue-collar people who built the houses so they were cheap.

My brother stayed in our hometown and he does fine. He has no children and a wife and a house full of fat spoiled cats. they make decent money. He and the wife both work in Des Moines in the health field. They take tons of vacations, it seems like they are gone about 10 times a year.

[JaneV2.0]

Let's see--my birthplace (where the nearest hospital was) was a bustling metropolis of around 10,000, and my hometown logged some 350 souls...There really wasn't anything to do but leave, which my parents did when the bloom on resort life faded. Maybe I would have been an artist/writer/beach bum who worked in a cannery or slung fried clams at a local eatery to support myself. We'll never know.

[Simplemind]

I have never lived more than 10 miles from home even though I moved a great deal. Now getting to travel in my later years I often wonder how life could have been if I moved to some of the lovely places I have visited. Wish I had nine lives....

[razz]

I have never lived more than 10 miles from home even though I moved a great deal. Now getting to travel in my later years I often wonder how life could have been if I moved to some of the lovely places I have visited. Wish I had nine lives....

That would be an interesting thread. Where would you live if given the choice of those you have visited?

[bae]

I can't imagine - the small town of a couple thousand people on the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio would not have been able to contain me.

[Zoe Girl]

I dont have a hometown, even my parents have had major moves 5 times. My mom moved more than that growing up.

Ultralight, that seems pretty negative. I know some of the places i lived would not have been a place to stay, but sometimes i do wish for a hometown. My parents are in a suburb of Des Moines. It is a newer neighborhood with very monochromatic style. But they have everything they need and room for us all to stay.

[sweetana3]

I grew up in Alaska and would have loved to stay. But job opportunities for growth simply do not exist. Husband was able to enter corporate management, complete his education and have many more career opportunities in Indiana. I would not have had the same chances for jobs within my agency and probably would have retired from the same job after 30 years of boredom. The jobs resulted in us being able to retire comfortably and early.

Now that we have been in IN for over 40 years, it is our hometown and we will be staying.