I am moving for a promotion. Just a couple hours away, not a huge move. I am remaining in the same state, same relative distance from family. I am leaving the area but I will probably be back down the road. Might be back in six months to a year when my contract ends. Up to God not me. People are acting like it is the end, like I will never see them again. It's really not that far away... At least I don't think so.
For context, I live in WA. For our foreign posters WA State is about half the size of Germany and a third the size of France. Bigger than England but smaller than the sum total of the United Kingdom.
I drive a couple hours every other week to visit my family. Once upon a time a lot of my friends and family made similar drives to visit each other but this seems to have died post covid. Am I a modern outlier, or do people just not travel anymore? Even to visit friends or family? Is this just a byproduct of the Covid lockdown, increased expensiveness of America and anti social nature of this country (the Bowling Alone phenomenon)?
I’m not sure they ever did. I moved anywhere from 3-8 hours away by car (depending on which family member) about 15 years ago. I can count on two hands the amount of times anyone has visited me. Since Covid clownery, I think my Dad has visited once and that’s it. I’ve even tried to entice them with going to the big city, sporting events, drive them all around, etc. as that would be novel to them.
A lot of these same people I visit twice a year. Some of them, like my mother, is a bit of a chore but I do anyway. Others are fun. I enjoy trips seeing my brother and nephews or some of my cousins.