When brothers move away

I just received a call from my brother David informing me that he has safely made it to Denver, Colorado. Dave needs to get settled up there (i.e. find a job, get his own place, etc.), but otherwise, the Mile High City will be his new home.

Dave had been planning this move for several months. When he returned to Houston from Japan two Decembers ago, he understood that his stay here would only be temporary and that he would one day move to another part of the country. This wasn't because he dislikes Houston; he simply wanted to live elsewhere (someplace where they "actually have four real seasons," as he put it). He had considered living in places other than Denver - he even took a trip to Portland, Oregon last year to see the area for himself - but decided that, since he had lived there previously (before he spent several years teaching English in Prague and Osaka) and has several friends there, Denver was the right place for him.

David's move to Denver comes on the heels of my brother-in-law Danny's move to the Washington, DC area almost two weeks ago. After flying up there January to see the nation's capital and to visit friends of his, Danny immedidately began contemplating relocating there. He finally decided to do, and is currently living with a friend in Herndon, Virginia while he gets settled. Danny decided to move because he felt that there would be more job opportunities in his line of work in the DC area than here in Houston, and he also thought that there would be better mobility options for him there (Danny is visually impaired and cannot drive, and DC's public transportion network is much more extensive than Houston's). Like David in Denver, he has a lot of friends there.

But, more than anything else, Danny simply felt like it was time for a change. A short stint in San Antonio aside, he had lived his entire life in Houston. The time had come for him to move on, to experience a new life in another part of the country.

Things here in Houston certainly won't be the same without them; my life will be a little less lively and a little more boring. But I certainly won't begrudge either Danny or Dave for making decisions that they feel are in their best interests. And perhaps their absence is not an entirely bad thing for me. The truth is, my practice of spending a few nights every week hanging out with Danny at the Dog House Tavern - as enjoyable as it has been - probably needed to come to an end anyway. I'm getting to a point in my life where I need to live a bit healthier, a bit more temperate, and this is as good a time as any to start.

And it's not like I'll never see them again. They'll make regular trips back to Houston to see Kirby, Danny's daughter Cheyenne, my parents, Danny and Lori's parents, their friends here and me. And I now have an excellent excuse to make quick trips to Denver and Washington. I think I'll be paying a lot more attention to Southwest's Ding! fare sale alert program on my computer from now on.

Best of luck to Danny and David in their new lives.