When I moved to Hershey 10 years ago, it was under duress; we had lived happily in Tennessee for 17 years and never planned to move. But our job situation, as many of yours, changed during the "great recession." For us, that meant moving to Pennsylvania. We had leveraged our home to buy a small business a few years earlier. Now, the housing market was down, our equity gone. Investments? Tanked.
After being homeowners for 16 years, we moved into a rental house in Hershey. It was small and old. Our chipper first-grader, after walking through for the first time, asked excitedly, "Where's the rest of the house?"
I spent several weeks on the verge of tears, feeling sorry for myself and lonely. What happened to my old life? Our nice home? Our "roots?"
One afternoon, I compl...