I know I post rather gloomy things about Oklahoma's legislature. Sometimes, rather often, actually, people ask why I still live here.
Other than the obvious facts - Oh, I should perhaps spell them out:
Moving is expensive. Even if you don't have a lot of stuff, furniture is large and heavy. Books are worse. It takes renting a moving van. Gas is expensive, especially in moving vans that suck gas. Moving is expensive, especially moving out of state.
Finding a place to move to when moving out of state is no piece of cake, either. Without an "in" a local contact, finding a decent place that's also affordable is a challenge. Not impossible, but certainly not easy.
Jobs. Finding a decent job is not exactly easy, not when your skills are in the bottom quartile for pay or employment. 90% of my jobs have had zero to do with my skills, they've just been ways to get enough money to get by. What job would be waiting for me somewhere else that's half as good as the one I currently have?
Friends, family, community. It would take a lot of time to fit into and build a new community, to find new friends. And most of my living family lives in Oklahoma.
I came to Oklahoma in the 70's as a new bride. Back then, Oklahoma was mostly Democrat and old style Republicans. There were good schools, good jobs, and lots of opportunities here, then.
See, I have a house. A small one, cheap, in need of repairs but in a decent neighborhood (the football stadium is both good and bad...it balances out).
I have a job. True, it doesn't pay as well as it did when I first started it, but it has security and a decent, if modest, retirement, once I vest in it. It's interesting, it has a lot of variety, I like my co-workers.
My family is here. My youngest son is about to be transferred to Ft. Sill in Lawton, so he'll be close again. My two youngest daughters own homes nearby.
OctopodiCon and Water Paws are here in Oklahoma.
I could sell the house (I will be selling it), and live off the profit for a time while I get settled somewhere else. But the children. They have made lives here, and I don't really want to move too far from them.
I do plan to move after I retire, in about 5 years. Originally, I was just going to move to a more rural location here in Oklahoma, someplace less expensive but still fairly close to my family. I'd thought about running for a small political office to try to make some difference, but, yanno, that doesn't see likely.
Everywhere close is red. I live in a sea of red surrounded by more red. Texas. Arkansas. Louisiana. Kansas. Missouri. Every place within a reasonable visiting distance is just as red. Moving farther away, to a blue state, just seems so impossible. I can't live where it gets too cold, as I have cold-induced asthma, so that eliminates almost all the northern blue states, leaving only Oregon, California, New Mexico. And New Mexico, the parts I drove through smell so strongly of creosote that I don't think I could acclimate. So, Oregon or California.
My retirement won't cover the living expenses of California. It may not cover the living expenses of Oregon. And both are so far away from family and friends. So that leaves Texas or Arkansas or northern Louisiana (maybe Shreveport?).
What would happen to OctopodiCon if I lived so far away? Who would run the Water Paws booth at MedFair? Once I move, I won't have the funds to come back to Oklahoma often. Running OctopodiCon would mean paying for a hotel for more than a week. I could do that. But I couldn't do both OctopodiCon and Water Paws at MedFair because more than 2 weeks of hotels not paid for by work? Just isn't in my retirement budget.
So, yeah. I'm in Oklahoma, doing what I can for as long as I stay here, for as long as I have friends and family here. I'm not Republican enough to abandon them.
In 5 years, when I retire? Who knows?