As I mentioned several months ago, I moved home to Portland in April. What I haven’t mentioned here is that I moved to Idaho in September.

I’ve always preferred the Pacific Northwest to any other place I’ve lived. I only spent so many years in the DC area because I was happy at U.S. Term Limits, while that lasted. When USTL downsized and moved to Illinois, I took the next job offer I received — sysadmin and webmaster for U.S. English. It was a decent job, but I was never thrilled with the issue. I suppose it makes sense for English to be the official language of the United States, at the very least to reduce government social engineering via multilingual paperwork. Do immigrants benefit from learning English? Absolutely. But really, it’s always seemed like a non-issue to me on a political level. Arguments for official English always tout the “unifying role of the English language.” Would a common language unite the nation? Maybe. Truthfully, though, I just don’t care.

And although the staff members at U.S. English are a fine group of people — culturally diverse, to boot — many of the organization’s supporters seemed entirely xenophobic and anti-immigrant. Scared and hateful, particularly of our south-of-the-border friends. So I was always ambivalent about this job (although happy with some of the projects I worked on), and when my lease ended I decided to head home.

Another primary reason for this decision was my family. Some people, when they have time off, travel to interesting places, in order to see interesting things. When I have time off, I visit my family — almost without fail. My mom had a few strokes beginning around a year ago, and had rapidly declined in health. My dad was having an increasingly difficult time taking care of her on his own, so I wanted to be nearby to help out.

Before I knew it, my plan to stay temporarily at mom and dad’s house while I looked for an apartment had turned into months. And then everyone decided to ditch me. My brother-in-law got a teaching job in Caldwell, Idaho, so my youngest sister’s family, who I had grown used to seeing often, moved there in August. When I took my parents out to visit them later that month, they decided they would move there too — my dad grew up nearby, he no longer had a career to prevent the move, and the area is full of relatives. My parents picked out a place in adjacent Nampa.

At first I planned to stay behind in Portland; I hadn’t moved back to my favorite city in order to leave again only months later. But when it became clear my mom needed to be in a nursing home, due both to her steadily failing health and my dad’s increasing exhaustion, I opted to go with them. At least for a while. So now I’m keeping my dad company and visiting my mom every day, and I get to see my sister and adorable two-year-old nephew almost as often. As far as I’m concerned, life doesn’t get much better than that.