I've been extremely depressed since high school and now I'm in my late 20s and going nowhere in life, esp under the scrutiny of my over critical adoptive family. I feel like a freak on the daily being black and bisexual in my suburban, heavily Mormon community.

I have a once in a lifetime chance to get out of here and move to Houston to be with my bio family. They offered to help me get set up and everything and I feel like I'd be a fool not to do it.

But I'm also nervous because while I'm miserable, Salt Lake is my home. It's familiar and comfortable and safe.

Have any of you lived in Houston? Is it fairly progressive? I don't know how to describe what I'm looking for, but I'm just curious.

Thanks.

Can't comment on work an social elements if Houston but for what it is worth you will find it extremely humid in comparison with SLC.

"Everything is attitude."
        --lots of people

You could throw a hundred
humans into the exact same
set of circumstances and
get 100 different outcomes.



"Expectations are not part
of the recipe of life."
         --Judic West

You can never be sure what
is gonna come out of the
oven when the timer dings!



Would it surprise you if 33.3% of us said, "Go for it!";
33.3% of us said, "You're better off stickin' with what you know!"; and the other 1/3 started telling you about Einstein and the Tao?

"Man plans and God laughs."

--Family Lot's physician and Henry Bemis's bete noir






A modicum of substance follows below.

First, it depends on what you mean by "Houston."

The Houston metro area is approximately sixty miles by sixty miles.

Houston / Harris County is the most diverse metro area in the USA.

Harris County is blue, and the surrounding areas are very red.


Petroleum is the number one industry, most of the oil companies have their headquarters in Houston proper or in the northern suburbs (Exxon is in The Woodlands).


Traffic is horrible. I-45 from Galveston to Huntsville (NW to SE right through Houston) has a high accident rate.


https://www.visithoustontexas.com/about-houston/neighborhoods/

Houston is hot and muggy between March and October.

Where's ziller on this matter?

Zap.

LW stupidly confused Huston with Austin.

D'oh!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2023 01:50AM by Lot's Wife.

I have lived near Houston since 2008. Katy Texas has the nickname the Salt Lake of Texas. Katy, TX has a high LDS population. Houston traffic can get bad. What I love about Houston H town is that there are different restaurants, the zoo and many museums. The summer is hot and without AC in the car is quite a challenge. Houston is very diverse.

It’s like living in any big city with a thriving economy. A lot of outsiders have moved to Houston because of the jobs. There is not a dominant religion influencing everything like Salt Lake. The Texas accent is disappearing because so many outsiders have moved in.

If you hate it, you can always move back to SLC or somewhere else. But I think a chance to get closer to your bio family would be a good thing. I moved to NYC for eight years, and while it ended up not being my favorite place, it gave me a great work opportunity as well as the chance to get closer to my mom.

It's not about Houston. If you are looking for perfect place to land you got it wrong. There are no guarantees. You need to be perfect at landing--anywhere. Then making the most of any opportunity.

There is a shelf life on being able to take chances. I couldn't do today what I did at 27 while still in Salt Lake City. I loaded everything in a Uhaul and hopped in my old rust colored Ford Galaxy and headed to L.A. with only $200 and a place to stay for one night when I got there. I spent half the money fixing the car half way there. I took the first job I could get and just killed myself to be good at it. Sometimes ignorance and guts are the same thing.



Explore. Explore. Explore. With out exploration there is nothing but SAME.

Good luck whatever you decide.

Done & Done I want to hear more. Want happened next in LA? What job did you get?

Oooops. My answer ended up below.

Yeah!  Tell us more!

I lived in Glendale from 1977 until 1990 and had a business location on Glenoaks, just north of Lexington, from 1982 until 1999...

How come we never met?  

Oh, yeah...I was inactive!

I lived in North Hollywood and worked there. Not much chance of us meeting unless you were at Studio One on Saturday Nights.

I was in Glendale in 85 so maybe we crossed paths at the Galleria? Now you dress like Britney I know what to look for.

I mean where but on RfM could you find the wisdom of Judic West ("Expectations are not part of the recipe of life.") and Done & Done ("If you are looking for perfect place to land you got it wrong. There are no guarantees. You need to be perfect at landing--anywhere.") in the same room?

Both are true.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2023 04:05PM by Soft Machine.

A friend of the guy who let me stay a few days had to go to NY unexpectedly and asked me to fill in for him, temp I guess, to hold his place for a few weeks. This was at a company that made props, sets, costumes, puppets and anything show biz related. When my friend got back they asked me to stay on. My degree from BYU was art and I had background in doing scenic art from my time in SLC plus I had been into the crafts since I was born. All very serendipitous since I was flying blind.

I read this post earlier this morning, and I keep dwelling on it. Partly because I can relate to some of it.

It occurs to me that a framework of sorts might help to talk about the situation, and the one below is as good as any.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

https://sketchplanations.com/maslows-hierarchy

Summarized from top to bottom (but numbered in the order they need to be satisfied):

5) Self-actualization -> inner fulfillment
4) Esteem -> self-worth, confidence, recognition
3) Social -> family, friendship, belonging
2) Safety -> personal security, resources
1) Physiological -> food, water, shelter, warmth.


In my own situation, my dad remarried when I was 17, and essentially went AWOL re. his four kids (quit paying child support, college, braces, etc). Unfortunately, because he'd fought my mom for custody of half the kids--like we were furniture--he was stuck with me. He grudgingly provided #1, and little more.

My mom provided #3 and #4 without reservation, but she could not provide #1 or #2.

What I really wanted was to go to college to move forward in life. My dad wouldn't provide it. My mom couldn't provide it.

All that to say that a healthy family situation ought to be providing #1 thru #4, a happy, healthy, nurturing environment, so that a child can thrive and successfully grow and transition to adulthood.

From your first couple sentences, I get the sense that you are frustrated with #3 & #4, which means you'll struggle with #5. And "Houston" may be the solution, or may not.

If you have #1 & #2, then it can be difficult/scary to let them go in order to move forward, even if #3 & #4 aren't there. I know this from my own experience, and other people I've known over there years (there are a lot of dysfunctional families out there).

It sounds like your bio-family is willing to provide the #1 thru #4, to facilitate #5, which would be great, but I'd caution you to be careful about that. I don't mean to cast aspersions on your bio family, but two things in your post stand out.

The first thing is the notion that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If a family is going to provide #1 thru #4, it should be constant, always, anytime, not just right now. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, and perhaps it's a FIRST in a lifetime opportunity. But that get's to the second thing, which is why do you have both a bio- and adoptive-family. I don't mean to be nosy, but hope that the circumstances are such that the bio-family truly can step up and provide #1 thru #4.



On a different note, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on place. The #1 thru #5 dynamic is the same everywhere. If moving will improve that dynamic for you, then do it. If not, then moving won't help.

For example, I went on a road trip with some friends in college, and we stayed a couple days in Jacksonville, FL with some friends of one the other guys. We were all working our way through our hometown college, and at least one of the friends in Jacksonville was doing the same, but he was complaining about all sorts of things, and said, "If I could just get the he|| out of this town..." Well, the group talked him into moving back to our hometown, so before long he was also back at our school. Fast forward a little, and he was complaining: "If I could just get the he|| out of this town... (again)". So, he had been unhappy in the hometown, and left for a "great" place. Then he was unhappy, and moved back home, because it was gonna be "great." But it wasn't, and he was itching to move off to some other "great" place.

My point is, it's not the place that's great. The circumstances have to be great.


Anyway, in my own situation, the way I finally was able to find #1 thru #4, so that I could move forward and find #5 was that I did a 3 year enlistment in the Army. I did it specifically to save up some money, and get the GI Bill for college, but in retrospect I realize that in their own way, they provided #1 thru #4. In the short term, they fed and housed me, paid me, provided a structure in which I could function and even thrive and grow if I had wanted to, etc. But, longer term, yeah, I left 3 years later with sizable savings and the GI Bill to help get through school.


Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to go out and join the Army. But I am saying to look to satisfy #1 thru #4 in a way that's as stable and unwavering as possible. If the family arrangement does not work out, then there are other options, like the Peace Corps, Coast Guard, etc. Or perhaps even returning to SLC if the bridge is not burned.


EDIT to add: it looks like Done & Done his some of the same points while I was typing! I should have refreshed the page.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2023 01:24PM by Gordon B. Stinky.

Thanks, Beth!

I second that emotion...

Thanks, Tom.

Texas. 'Nuff said !

You should try Portland, Oregon. The climate is moist and so are the people.

I am a native of SLC. I moved to Houston metro area (Ft Bend County) in late 1997 for work. Except for middle 2012 to middle 2016, when I was back in SLC (due to a transfer back to the company that one here had bought in 2006), I have lived here nonstop. I retired in March 2020. My son was 12 when we moved. he is now 37 going on 38. This area is more home to him now than SLC (where he was born).

Yes it is humid in the summer. Yes it gets a lot of rain compared to SLC. BUT you are not shoveling that water, except in a very RARE occurrence.

BUT overall it is not bad. Air quality is lots better than SLC's now. Lots more to do down here vs. SLC; baseball (MLB and AAA), football, MLS, NBA basketball. Lots of live theater. I have heard said that Houston has more venues and seats of anywhere else in USA except NYC.

I would say to give it strong consideration......

I've never lived in Houston, but I do live in Dallas. Used to live in Utah. I like it in Texas compared to Utah.
Moving states is one of the best things I ever did. I was miserable to Utah as well. I am now moving out of Texas for a new experience.

I say go for it! Moving to a new state/city can really reset things for you.

I know for sure there is a lot more to do in Houston than SLC. And, you don't have to drive very far to get to a beach (although not a great one).

I definitely recommend Salt Lake over any metro area (except some places like Provo/Orem, Rexburg Idaho, Thatcher Arizona, Snowflake Arizona, and other such holy lands) in the world because you can surround yourself with other people who will help you get sucked into this wondrous way of thinking about things that we do in this beloved church of ours. Without the blessings of the Correlation program I'd probably end up learning to think some other way than how this wondrous step-by-step program of washing my brain has performed on me so that I'm now such a peculiar thinker. If you do go to Houston then there will be so many other distractions. But if you do go there then maybe someone like me can be your neighbor.

Thinking of neighbors, I'm supposed to be warning all of mine to get themselves into the true church. So, I got to get going now to go harass and nag them all into assimilating into this beloved church of ours.

I moved from SLC to Houston back in 2008 to do my PhD at Rice and have been here ever since. I agree that no place is perfect but Houston has been pretty great for me, by and large. The traffic is horrible but the job market is great. There is plenty to do here socially and you'll never get bored finding new things to do here.

I live in Sugar Land which is about 25 minutes SW of Houston proper. Where exactly would you be moving?

While Texas is probably the last place I personally would live (I'm a diehard northeastern gal), now is the time to go somewhere new if you have the chance. Sounds like you'll have support from your birth family, which is a plus and I hope that turns out well. Starting over in your twenties is a lot easier to do than thirties or forties, IMHO. I understand Houston is extremely diverse and liberal. If weather isn't an issue for you, go for it!

Not very well