It's official: I'm moving to New Mexico!
Last edited Fri Jun 13, 2025, 10:21 PM - Edit history (1)
In the aftermath of a friend’s tragic death in 2012, we connected with a few friends and colleagues of his in Las Cruces, his previous home (he'd bee a researcher at NMSU in Las Cruces). In 2018, looking for a new place to vacation for our 25th anniversary, we decided to venture to New Mexico for the first time for both of us. We both instantly fell in love with the state, its people, its sights, and its culture, and we’ve made friends. We first started visiting Las Cruces in 2018 and have continued on an annual basis, each time falling more and more in love with that city, its people, and its culture.
I soon started openly expressing that I’d love to relocate there, and I assumed that it would be once my husband Danny and my mother have passed on and I’m in need of starting a new chapter in my life. However, with the passing of Danny’s last remaining close relative in his native South Carolina, and with my mother and sister giving me their blessing as long as we have a guest bedroom for them when they visit, neither of us have anyone holding us back. We do have a few close friends left in Memphis, but most of them have also passed on. I’m getting more and more weary of the rat race and my niche at work is getting smaller and smaller. Since the COVID pandemic, I’m finding that I need less anxiety and more exercise and more intellectual stimulation. Danny is getting older and noticeably less capable than he used to be, and I want his remaining years to be happy ones filled with both adventure and comfort. And needless to say we both need far less reich-wing red-state lunacy.
Moving now rather than when I originally planned means I get to share the experience with him, and I won’t be undertaking this alone when I’m precisely at the lowest point of my life.
Moving is a scary step. I’ve lived in Memphis all my adult life, since I was 21 in 1993. All we Memphians know people who moved here, didn’t like it, scoffed at it, and moved away because they couldn’t cut it here. That’s not what we’re doing now. We love Memphis and it will always feel like home. But after thirty years here, it’s time for a change, and the desert calls.
During some vacation time I had to burn up in January, we went out and looked at houses with a realtor a friend had recommended, and he really went above and beyond. We ended up bidding on a house that wasn't on our list but he had selected that we really liked, and our bid was accepted instantly. We closed on the house before we made it back home, and we've been furiously packing ever since.
I can't help but feel like the homesteaders of 150 years ago, who took their covered wagons across the Great Plains to the West.
The movers arrive on Wednesday and we'll be leaving Memphis for good on Thursday. We can't wait to get to our lovely home in Las Cruces and make new friends.
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We will almost be neighbors! 
