I grew up in Minnesota, but my parents and extended family are all from and live in North Carolina. My brother and I being the exceptions. Until recently he was an officer in the Army, traveling the world before settling in Colorado. But everyone else in the family, my parents, aunts and uncles, cousins and such are all in NC. Though I was raised in MN, the culture I first knew was from the South, was raised on collard greens and black eyed peas, my folks speak differently than my friends parents did.

When A and I started dating, I told her that I was planning on relocating to NC in the near future. Then Covid happened and that delayed the plan by a year, but ultimately we made the trip. Even before Covid I had been working partially from home, and I did so most of Covid. My employer agreed to keep me on, even with me now 1000 miles away from our office and LAN. I'll probably go back to be onsite a few times a year, whenever there is hardware projects or compliancy things that are just easier in person.

My folks and their generation are now in their late 70's, mostly. I lost my uncle P a couple years ago, he was a great man, just a giant gentle bear, in some ways to patriarch of the family. I have many lovely memories from my childhood of him and his family. Purely by luck I happened to be in NC when he passed, so I was able to attend his funeral. His passing reminded me that it was time to get closer to family.

So A and I put our stuff in a PODS container, packed up the car, and we two plus a cat drove to Winston-Salem. She drove the most, which is typical for us, but I helped. Driving is really difficult for me, my poor brain can't track the 23 things seemingly all happening simultaneously. When I wasn't driving I mostly tried to comfort our not-particularly-happy cat.

Looking forward to warmer weather and people. I love many aspects of MN, but people are just an ounce too stand-offish in my opinion. I'm looking forward to a little more diversity and mixing. The last fifteen years I've lived in NE Minneapolis, which most areas is still fairly white. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's still city living and we take all kinds. But as recent events have shown, Minnesota is hardly immune from the same racial injustice seen elsewhere. Lets not kid ourselves, yes the South has a troubling history, but the North isn't nearly as progressive as we've been led to believe. At the risk of sounding niave or tokenistic, but as a white man I am looking forward to having Black neighbors.