Why do you live where you live?

First things first, in the excitement over the big news yesterday I forgot to pick a contest winner. So last night I went through all the comments. I was going to pick a winner based on which guess I liked best, but so many of them were awesome that I gave up and went back to my old friend the random integer generator. And the winner is Devan! For the record, she guessed that we are buying a house, a puppy, or both. She was wrong! Although we do hope to get a dog shortly after moving to Denver. But I did clearly state that the most accurate guess would not necessarily be the winning one. So, Devan, email me your info and at some point during the pre-moving frenzy I will get a prize out to you!

Now, moving on. A lot of people have expressed surprise or other strong reactions to the fact that we're not moving to Denver for a concrete REASON such as a job or to be near family or something.

When I gave my notice, the director of my department asked me why we were going to Denver. I think she more than most other people was open and understanding to our reasons for going--possibly because she knows that I'm happy in my current job and therefore it probably wasn't foremost in her mind that I would be moving across the country for the opportunity to leave my current position. And she's right. As I said yesterday, we decided to move to Denver, and then we looked for a way to make that happen.

Apparently that's not a very common thing to do? My own parents live in North Carolina because when they decided they didn't want to stay where they were (Massachusetts--too cold for them), NC was the best of my dad's transfer options with his company. It's not Kansas, but it isn't the place they would have chosen if they could have gone anywhere.

And that's the situation for a lot of people. I know there are tons of reasons why people move--jobs, family, school, convenience, money. But just deciding that you want to be somewhere does not seem to be a common reason to move. Or am I wrong?

I mean, the way we wound up in DC was a bit random for both of us. When I was in college, I wanted to move to Chicago after graduation, and during my junior year I arranged a summer internship there that fell through at the last minute. I was abroad at the time and my sister, who was already living in DC, helped me find a place to live there, so I found an eleventh-hour internship and spent the summer in DC.

I liked it, it was near family, there were job opportunities, and I liked the fact that there was so much nonprofit and government work here, leading to a lot of very idealistic, driven young residents. So after graduation, I didn't look anywhere else. I moved here to DC, I liked it fine, and I don't regret it at all. But I couldn't imagine settling here.

Torsten, on the other hand, sort of stumbled onto DC by accident. He was in grad school and wrote to a bunch of professors in search of a research position while he worked on his thesis. He wound up at the University of Maryland, and the professor he worked with (who is still a friend, and in fact was a groomsman in our wedding) wound up introducing him to the man who is now his boss.

So, here we are, for various reasons, which involve some measure of choice but a lot of measures of chance and circumstance as well. And this move to Denver is us thinking deliberately about the rest of our lives, and where and how we want to spend them. I know that we are very lucky to be in a position where we can make such a calculated decision and uproot ourselves like this. And it makes me wonder how many people have done similar things for similar reasons.

So tell me, why do you live where you live?