I don't know when I realized that every life problem I experienced that I googled led to the same website with the same fantastic advice, but I'm so, so glad it did.
I'm still living my fondest metafilter memory.
Six months ago, my husband and I were unhappily living in the DC metro area. We'd moved there so he could go to graduate school, but he quickly found it to be an overrated, overpriced, fairly miserable experience and dropped out within a semester. We both hated how overcrowded it was, how expensive, and how ill-fitting we felt within the culture there. We both wanted to find a "forever home"--a place to live where we'd feel right and happy. But we didn't know where that would be.
So I asked metafilter.
Somehow, armed with the knowledge only gleamed from a few scant paragraphs, you guys offered us an entire list of geographical locales we'd never even considered--places like Pittsburgh and Princeton and the Hudson Valley area of New York State. We got to googling, did some research, and discovered New Paltz. We came to visit two months ago and promptly fell in love.
Right now, I'm sitting in our (large, two bedroom, cheap) apartment, in our (spacious, comfortable) kitchen, looking out our back deck at our huge yard and the creek that runs through it. The air is cool and fragrant. Tomorrow, my husband is headed into town to play chess at a hippie coffee shop. No one here bats an eye at our tattoos. We're comfortable. We're happy.
And it wouldn't have happened without you.
You guys are strangers, sure, but so much more than that--you're strangers like us, who understand us. In that way, you're also our friends. I can't tell you how much this website has meant to me, or how much better it's made my life.
Thank you!
