Four Years of Change
Now that it’s been four years since the day I stepped foot in this place, more old friends are talking about my move to the Midwest and how it’s been. Very few saw this move coming, and in spite of my talking about it, as I got closer to my decision, even fewer thought I’d go through with it and actually leave. Even after I left, some thought I’d be right back and that I’d hate it here. I didn’t.
As I was going through cancer treatment, people saw the physical changes in me. When I left Seattle, I was 212 pounds and felt just fine. I got down to 144 in the hospital, and it happened in a hurry. People could see all of that without me saying I was sick, so I couldn’t hide it anymore, and I finally told the world. I managed to keep it a secret for a very long time.
Telling the story was far better than letting rumors take hold. Unless I said something about what I was going through, nobody knew what I was dealing with, just as they didn’t know what I was enduring leading up to my move to Missouri. Even now that I’m in deep remission, unless I say something, nobody knows anything. You can’t see it by looking at me.
The desire to leave the Seattle area started to resonate with me in 2017. I know because I found something I wrote that hinted at how I was beginning to feel about Seattle. I was stuck in this odd place of observations supporting my thinking about sticking around and observations suggesting I leave, but I had no idea where or why. I was avoiding confirmation bias, yet evidence supporting my decision to leave was mounting.
It was more of a feeling that I was growing in a different direction than the environment I was in. I just didn’t feel as welcome as I once did. Seattle has so much natural beauty, and there are special places everywhere, but it’s hard to feel at home when only one way of thinking or behaving is tolerated. It was the general intolerance that got the better of me. I decided that extremists were nasty people in character.
I could see garbage everywhere, and nobody seemed to care anymore, and I knew right then that all the stated motivations about the environment were paper-thin. Seattle was once one of the cleanest cities in the U.S., and we took pride in that. There was no garbage or graffiti anywhere. It was a point people would make when they came to visit me in Seattle.
Gone were the days when the place felt welcoming to everyone and people could speak their minds and go about their business. It became politically correct, and everyone could be part of a witch hunt. People were accused of things that couldn’t possibly be true, all in the name of political correctness. The corridor between downtown and Lake Union turned into an ugly, cheaply designed concrete canyon.
Gone were the interesting table discussions and gregarious humor out of fear of offending someone. Gone were the college debates and a willingness to discuss ideas openly you’d first have to ask were people politically land before you could open your mouth like free thinking was the Russian underground.
Seattle was once the hub of great thinkers, and it slowly became a tyrant of its own people, yet I felt like I was the only one noticing. Friends seemed surprised when I told them I was leaving and that my house was going on the market. By the time I put it up for sale, I couldn’t wait to get out. This wasn’t my city anymore. I didn’t recognize it. I didn’t feel like I belonged anymore. Garbage everywhere was not okay, and nobody was doing anything about it.
When I left Kirkland, there was no party, no celebration of any kind. I just left, like someone going home after a horrible dinner. My left-leaning friends considered my move to be toward some kind of ignorant, hateful place without knowing the two. This isn’t that by a long shot. This is the opposite, and people here have their values in check. Sure, there are outliers in all persuasions, but what matters most is that people are decent and they care about results.
I don’t even like to write about the incidents that occurred in Seattle and the absurdity of it all. People were rolling with the ridiculous just to remain politically correct. I couldn’t do it, and I didn’t want to argue with anyone. I just wanted to find a better place, and I did. What’s left now is that terrible feeling about the place, like it suddenly became East Berlin and I got out before the walls went up. The new Mayor of Seattle is attempting to penalize grocery stores for pulling out of Seattle. Yup, that sounds more like East Berlin than a city that’s vibrant.
I’ll still go back for Exotics at Redmond Town Center and to see my friends, but I don’t want to stay in Seattle for very long. I want to hit my favorite restaurants, at least the ones still in business, and get going. Bye. I just wish my friends were here and not there.
What’s interesting is that it’s not about the physical place as much as the political anger that seems to show up everywhere. It’s about the unwelcome feeling I get when I’m there. Yet even as I visit, I’m still avoiding my own confirmation bias. All the things they told me would be bad in the Midwest were just not true. The Midwest hasn’t fallen yet. Even now, people write to me who have never been here and ask how I do it, as if I’m living in some form of hell. I’m not. It’s just the opposite, and I’m thrilled that I’m here. I feel safe and very much my own person.
Only time will tell who is really in the bubble. Having lived and worked in both places, I’m confident the bubble is Seattle, and it grew stale.