Question #2

If you had to pick one of the places you've lived to live out the rest of your life, where would you pick and why?

Here are the choices:

1. Minneapolis, Minnesota and its western suburbs
2. San Francisco, California/Walnut Creek, CA
3. Deerfield, IL
4. Chicago, IL
5. Pittsburgh, PA
6. Falmouth, MA
7. Santa Fe, NM
8. New Haven, CT

I absolutely would not choose to live out the rest of my life in Pittsburgh, Falmouth, New Haven or Deerfield. None of those places would be satisfactory for the complete adult life cycle.

Santa Fe was lovely, but is very remote and somewhat expensive. However, I liked the desert, its beautiful, and I could see myself settling into the community there and growing old.

San Francisco isn't remote, but its ridiculously expensive and, well, its California. None of my family lives there anymore. Some friends from school live in the area though. It is cosmopolitan and exciting and near open water, which are all selling points, but no to San Fran as well.

At this point, its down to Minneapolis or Chicago, and that's a really hard choice. If right now I had a job offer for Minneapolis, and was married with plans for a family, then I would go back in an instant. My family is there, the education and health care systems are better than Chicago/Illinois and its smaller yet still vibrant. Also, I think that the winter sucks less in Minneapolis.

But Chicago has to be the choice right now. I like my job, my apartment and I'm starting to make friends and settle into an adult life. I don't know what the future will bring, and I'm not sure that I even want to get married and start a family, and as a single girl for the forseeable (and perhaps forever) future, I think that I would be much happier in the big city of Chicago. But then again... if I got a job offer to move back to Minneapolis and it was good enough (and I wasn't stuck in Chicago due to some sort of blog question answer rule) then I would move even now. Though that won't happen, so its not an issue.

In short, the answer is Chicago, IL.