Why I Left Texas?

[Texan1010]

Originally Posted by ViolentMimes

I hated the heat and the lack of urban, walkable areas. I hate driving and I wanted something denser than Texas can offer. I also cannot stand the racist/narrow mindset found so commonly in Texas.

Would you care to expand on your experience with racism? Or are you just stating that based off of what other people tell you...

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by ViolentMimes

I also cannot stand the .../narrow mindset found so commonly in Texas.

Most of us, even Texans, dislike narrow mindsets no matter where they are found.

[ViolentMimes]

Originally Posted by Texan1010

Would you care to expand on your experience with racism? Or are you just stating that based off of what other people tell you...

You should see my facebook news feed with all the people I went to high school with. It's disgusting to see some of these view points. (I grew up in Stephenville, but moved to Dallas and lived there for 10 years and can say things were much different for the better though)

[Texan1010]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

Most of us, even Texans, dislike narrow mindsets no matter where they are found.

^This

[Veyron]

Originally Posted by Kerby W-R

Texas Native...
Left 30 years ago and have never looked back.
- There are way too many narrow minded rednecks IMHO.
- I have to go back twice a year to see my elderly parents.
- Wish they lived someplace else...but no hard feelings.
- Wishing all of you Texans the very best.
- Hoping someday you'll be more progressive.

What part of texas did you live in? Where are these rednecks I mostly see mexicans, blacks and asians down here. You must live in waco or something.

[hooky hornstein]

In 1990, my wife and I moved from Austin (where I was born and raised) to Oklahoma City. It was a logical decision driven by an excellent job opportunity and reinforced by the thought that the capitol city/major college metropolitan area of one southwest state should be very much like another one.

At first, we were charmed by the low cost of living, leisurely pace of life and genuine friendliness of our neighbors. It was like we had moved to a small town with all the conveniences of a city. Or maybe even back in time to a simpler time like the 1950s or something.

But eventually, a hundred little perceptions began to haunt us. They were little, scarcely-tangible anecdotal observations. Individually, they were nothing and to even list them would make us sound snarky. But collectively, they all rubbed us the wrong way and made us feel like we were strangers in a strange land filled with polite people who were really nothing at all like us when it came to values.

Or maybe I just watched too many creepy made for TV movies in the '70s where unsuspecting strangers moved into communities of witches, vampires, zombies, etc...

[Hammie]

Being a transplant in Texas from the Northeast, I was always hoping this was temporary. But I've been here for 6 years, finally bought a house, and am accepting that this is where I am probably meant to be. And I'm good with that. Texas has definitely grown on me. There are a lot of things to like about Texas, namely the mild winters, and some to hate...the blistering heat in the endless summer. I do miss a good, robust snowfall now and then, but was damn glad to not be in Boston this particular winter. Not sure I could ever go back to that.

The people are also growing on me. My only complaint would be that people do push their political and religious views on you, especially when they know your views are the opposite of theirs. I do my best to never bring up these topics, but they somehow always manage to creep in. Sorry...not going to convert. Oh, and the driving...my second complaint. It is horrendous, but not enough to drive me out of the state.

[davis449]

I have traveled all over the country and some abroad in Europe. I have family in the Midwest and New England. I, myself, am a native Texan (West Texas). Though I disliked where I "grew up" here in TX, I have been fortunate enough to live all over the state for periods of time so I developed a deep love for it. I will never leave, as another poster put it, for love nor money. Sure there are places I love to visit in the other 49 states, but this is my home and always will be. My parents high tailed it to Denver, CO a little over 10 years ago and while my mother and sister (who moved out of the state in ~2002 and, after spending some years moving around the Midwest, and now lives there too) love it to death, my father is seriously homesick. He denies it almost pathologically when he's around either of them, but when we're here alone together...it's just undeniable how much he misses his real home. I look at him and, no matter how frustrated I may get living here on occasion, vow not to make that same mistake.

[doctorjef]

Some people develop tremendously tenacious roots in a place; others don't. I've liked many places I've lived, including Austin, where I lived twice, the second time for a stretch of 19 years. Other places in Texas I wasn't so crazy about. My dad was in the Marine Corps and then built an academic career after his retirement from the military, so we moved around a good deal. I have a lot of attachment to aspects of the Mid-Atlantic, where I lived during much of my childhood and beginning adolescence. I enjoyed living in Colorado after finishing grad school, although it was wrong for me career-wise. Lived in the UK, fulfilling a long term ambition, but it wasn't a perfect situation either, and ultimately I ended up here in Delaware, back East. I don't feel strongly attached to any place, per se, though I have affectionate feelings toward many places. Why did I leave Texas: ambitions, in a word. Ambitions not to be so unimaginative as to live the rest of my life in Austin; to move to England (via a short stint in Lithuania, as it turned out!); then to get back to the East Coast of so much of my childhood. Don't foresee living in Texas again, though I was born there, finished high school there, and went through all my undergrad and postgrad education there, as well as having had a successful career there. Delaware is a good enough fit, but who knows if my spouse and I will spend the rest of our lives here.