I Don’t Want to Move to Be Near My Grown Kid. My Friends Are Puzzled

So why not move to Maryland? I’m asked this all the time.

Downsizing in a big way

The difference in the cost of living between Evansville, Indiana, and Washington, D.C., is huge. For some perspective, we purchased our 3,400-square-foot, five-bedroom, three-bath home in a nice neighborhood for $135,000 in 1996. A real estate agent sent me a monthly market report showing that our home should sell for between $270,000 and $325,000 today.  

According to Zillow, the average housing price in Montgomery County, Maryland, is around $620,000. While we can afford a nice two-bedroom condo, HOA fees run between $400 and $1,000 per month, property taxes are quadruple our taxes here, and homeowners insurance is about the same for a third of the square footage. Those expenses add up to what our mortgage used to be.

Access to our son and his future wife would be important, so rural Maryland isn’t an option. The logistics of any move are always challenging, whether moving two miles or 2,000.

But it’s much more than the move itself. It’s learning to drive in an urban area when Tampa Bay was the busiest area we have lived in. Getting new doctors and dentists, changing insurance and bank accounts and finding a new church are overwhelming. It’s deciding whether we need two cars and how we use and access public transportation.

No matter our choice, there will be an emotional toll

Reality bites, and someday I may be forced to move closer to my son out of necessity. If I need assisted living, it won’t matter where I am, as my life will be smaller. But that’s not today’s reality.

Today, I would lose much — my frequent girlfriend gatherings at coffee shops for a vanilla latte chased with salted caramel ice cream. I would miss our conversations and the camaraderie of long-term friendships with inside jokes and aching familiarity.

Never was this community more pronounced than when my husband had a recent serious illness that kept him homebound. We had a tsunami of help, including each of our brothers who drove hundreds of miles to be here, friends and neighbors who brought dinner, sent flowers, an electric blanket and cards, and helped with things we couldn’t get done.

Our refrigerator went out when my husband was first hospitalized, and friends came and cleaned it out so I could stay at the hospital. When my husband missed our city’s big fall festival, a friend brought him his favorite fried corn fritters and hot maple syrup.

Finally, there are the feelings of our son and his future wife. I’ve never wanted to crowd him, and we encouraged him early to build his own life. We pushed him out of the nest, beginning with a weekend with his grandparents, church camp, Cub and Boy Scout high adventure trips to the Teton Mountains and Huntsville Space Camp, and finally, a trip to France and Italy with his high school French club.

We see our son and his fiancée four to five times a year and talk via Zoom once a week. We miss him terribly, but we also know he is where he wants to be, doing what he wants to do, and building his community.

I don’t see us crashing his party, but things can change, and circumstances usually do. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the present: sipping morning coffee with my husband, the view from my office of my lilac bushes, multiple coffee klatches, my diverse church with jazz/gospel music, our neighborhood’s amazing autumn palette and the mournful horns of coal barges we hear from the Ohio River.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.