Box Turtle

A couple of weekends ago Chad, Beepers, and I spent a night up in Logan. While there we visited the Zoo. (Yes, Logan has a zoo, albeit small. It was very well maintained, it wasn’t expensive to visit, and it was the perfect size for the attention span of a two year old.) Anyway, while visiting I discovered that I am much like the box turtle we saw at the zoo. I’m not sure of the specific species but this particular box turtle and I share a similar characteristic. This particular species of box turtle was described as staying in relatively the same area it’s entire life unless it is disrupted.

I’ve lived in relatively the same area my entire life. Other than Bountiful I lived in New Jersey for a while because I served a mission there, I lived in Texas for one summer (with some relatives), and I lived in Kaysville for a year and a half (also with some relatives). I never moved as a child and right now I live just over a mile from where I grew up, so 93% of my life I have lived in relatively the same area. This box turtle characteristic kind of runs in my maternal family. My maternal grandparents, my parents, my brother, my older sister and her family, two of my aunts, my uncle and his family all live in this immediate area. I live in a basement apartment of my aunts’ house, my older sister and her family live right across the street, and my uncle and his family live just behind them.

Just after high school, and to some extent during high school, I wanted to move away. I still wish that I would have moved away to go to college, but I didn’t because I was too afraid of how much it would cost me. I love my family, but I wanted to get away. Now that I’m married and especially now that I have one child, and another one on the way, I really enjoy being close to my family. Especially my older sister, Jennifer, because she is awesome! For the most part, my family gets along really, really well. We are always there to help to each other out and we don’t bother each other too much.

Sometimes I still think I would like the adventure of moving away from my comfort zone, but for various reasons I don’t think it would be a good idea. The problem right now is that I might have to move away from this comfort zone because we have no other choice, not because I am choosing to. The reason we don’t feel like we have much of a choice right now is because of the significant increase in prices in the Utah real estate market the past couple of years. In my eyes the cost of a starter home, that is within twenty miles of where we live now, is outrageous. We were so lucky that Chad started a really good job in his field a couple of months before he graduated, but even though I thought the money would be sufficient to get into a modest home, it isn’t even close to enough. I could go on and on about how discouraged we are with what’s happened with the real estate market in the past couple of years, but I won’t. I spend enough sleepless nights thinking about it and plenty of time crying about it.

For right now, Chad and I are just in limbo. Every once in a while we will go look at houses, but we can’t seem to find any we can afford, so we aren’t going to be making any big decisions for a while. I think we both know we may have to move out of state, but we don’t want to make that decision yet. The more experience Chad gets at his job, the better. We’re hopeful that something amazing will happen and we’ll be able to get into a house. Hopefully the box turtle in me isn’t going to be disrupted.