Moving Again ?

This is the start of a new thread or a series of conversations with myself (and anyone who happens to stumble across my ramblings).

I am thinking of moving.......again.  I appreciate that thousands if not millions of people move every day.  Many of them move even further away than I am thinking of. Of the millions of people who move each day, many if not most of them are gambling (and losing) far more than I am. But still, for me, moving is a big deal - even thinking about moving 500 kilometers to a different part of the province is mentally exhausting.  Moving 5,000 kilometers across the country is almost beyond thinking about. The very thought of moving could make one question one's sanity. While I am surprised that I have I have come to the point where moving is a possibility, people I have talked to are not. In fact it seems as if they are surprised that it has taken so long for me to make the decision.

So why am I doing it? Why would anyone think about moving for the fifth time in 10-11 years? That is an absurd amount of work and expense. One could think, with some legitimacy, that I didn't know what I wanted or that I was infected with a particularly virulent form of the " grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome. The fact of the matter is that I do know what I want (but what I want/need changes over time) and with one exception, I have only made the previous four moves after much soul searching, anxiety and profound reluctance.Three of the four moves have been painful and even as I watched the truck with all of my possessions drive away I would have done almost anything to change my mind. But I didn't then and I suspect that I will not this time.

I am 66. While my health, with one small exception is reasonably good, I can feel that my body (and sometimes my mind) is getting older. I don't move as much or as fast as I use to. While I like to think that I use my energy in a smarter, better planned way, the fact is that I have less energy to use. And there are certainly days when I wonder if my brain is deteriorating at a faster rate than my body.

I live alone, in a beautiful city with all of the needed supports. I have a great dentist, a doctor and a cardiologist. Peterborough has great food, music, two post secondary institutions, lots of green space and nice people. It is also five hours by road from my daughter and six ( not counting getting to the airport) hours by plane from where my son lives.When (not if) I need some help (as I age) both are too far away to help. If I needed a lot of help, they would have to make some major sacrifices to be there. While I know that they would want to help, it seems to me that that is far too much to ask.

It is not that I don't have friends in Peterborough - I do. Some of them I have known for well over twenty years. But most are my age.  All are busy, all have families. I don't think that that they are that much healthier than I am.  While it is tempting to fantasize that we would all grow old together - and then die around the same time - that seems an unlikely fantasy.

So if I need to move closer to family, and given that one "child" lives in central Canada and the other on the West Coast - where should I move to? It is not as easy of a question as it would seem to be.Moving