"Instead, I was sitting in my Iowa City apartment scrolling on my phone. I passed a video of hundreds of people gathered in Memorial Union Terrace for live music, a photo of old friends clinking margaritas at a Mexican restaurant I used to love ... As I saw more posts from my community back in Madison, Wisconsin, I felt a pang - not of jealousy, but something closer to grief."
"I first moved from Green Bay to Madison for college when I was 18. It became my home for the next three decades - a city where I fell in love, became a mother, and had some of my greatest joys and deepest sorrows. I hadn't thought much about leaving until about two years ago, when my aging apartment's lease was up for renewal."
"For the fourth year in a row, my landlord wanted to raise the rent. I was living with my partner and splitting the bills, but we were planning to separate within a few months. To make matters worse, my temporary position as a project manager was nearing its end, further tightening my budget. Technically, I could've endured the increase, but barely. I didn't want to be one bad month away from the edge."
She relocated from Madison to Iowa City after decades in Madison due to repeated rent increases, an ending job, and an impending separation that threatened financial stability. Iowa City appealed for its lower cost of living, natural beauty, and literary community connected to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Two years after the move, she had not formed any friendships and experienced grief when seeing social posts from her former community. She spends evenings scrolling on her phone instead of engaging in local activities, confronting loneliness despite practical reasons for relocating.
Read at Business Insider
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