I periodically go thru variations of this. I never regret leaving but am sad to see how old classmates are, how many died, etc.
My main regret is it would be nice to snowbird in my home town but I am afraid to unless I legally change my name because I have psycho stepsiblings who hated my mom, probably justifiably.

Anonymous wrote:You may have regretted staying, too. Had you stayed in your hometown, you may have always wondered if your career and life in general would have been better had you moved away.

OP. Probably, I am thinking that as well. But now with hindsight, I can say it would have been awash career wise , and I made many personal sacrifices. DH didn’t work out either, I could have found someone better in my hometown.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You may have regretted staying, too. Had you stayed in your hometown, you may have always wondered if your career and life in general would have been better had you moved away.

+1. I, too, moved away from my hometown with little benefit. I'm in the DC area with a low-paying/dead end job and get pangs for what might have been if I'd stayed. In some ways life would have been easier (certainly cost of living would have been), but seeing high school classmates who never left on FB makes me think I would have regretted staying, too.

OP. Many of my old friends aren’t happy either but they have decent careers (lawyers, doctors etc) as well. It’s the same thing. I wish I could spend a year here, with DD but she doesn’t want to. There’s be an amazing school for her where theyd accept her in a heart beat. I don't want to go back to my miserable life in a week…

We are going through a similar soul searching. We buried my dad this winter and he was a workaholic who never had time for anything but work. You realize that ultimately hopefully you are more than a resume and you really can't take it with you. I do feel like even though I am almost sixty it is coloring the decisions I will make about how to spend the rest of my life. I think there's also a tendency to assume that you will live to be ninety, and to therefore put things off, assuming you can do this or that when you are retired. I feel like I will probably spend more time and more money visiting family than I otherwise might have, but there's no way I could have lived in my hometown.

Anonymous wrote:You may have regretted staying, too. Had you stayed in your hometown, you may have always wondered if your career and life in general would have been better had you moved away.

+1. I, too, moved away from my hometown with little benefit. I'm in the DC area with a low-paying/dead end job and get pangs for what might have been if I'd stayed. In some ways life would have been easier (certainly cost of living would have been), but seeing high school classmates who never left on FB makes me think I would have regretted staying, too.

You may have regretted staying, too. Had you stayed in your hometown, you may have always wondered if your career and life in general would have been better had you moved away.

I have a small place where I grew up and went to college, I still have everything there, my desk is full of notebooks from college - I never look at this old stuff but was looking for some paper/notebooks t write on and just came across graduation photos and cards from friends and relatives and a wave of nostalgia hit me. Why did I move so far away? Miss out on life with my family while they were younger and healthy? Half of the people aren’t even alive anymore, or lost touch with friends. I left for grad school, work and DH. I gained nothing, just complicated my life and there was zero financial or other benefit by moving away. Makes me endlessly sad…