A Californian moves to Texas and back: It wasn’t cheap and it was politically fraught

Temecula is the best place I have ever lived, and I have not been unhappy here at all, but my brother, who I am very close with, has decided to move to Texas in 2022.

At the same time, I was told that as a teacher I would have to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and I didn’t want to. I consider myself pretty conservative, and there are a lot of things in California state policy that I don’t agree with.

At the time, a lot of people were moving to Texas, and they always said, “For freedom.” I was intrigued by that. I thought, maybe I was really missing out on something.

After my brother and his family moved to Texas, I flew out to see the place. To be honest, I didn’t really like it. I should have trusted my instincts. But I couldn’t imagine losing my family.

We decided to move in January 2022. My husband was going to go with me. He didn’t want to go but he knew I was good friends with his brother.

Once I made the decision I felt like a ghost. I cried every day before I left. I thought the feeling would fade once I got there.

By the beginning of March we were on our way, thankfully we hadn’t sold our house in California.

We moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

I rented a house from my brother in a town called Highland Village. I knew I had to find a new job, but with my California teaching credential, it was harder than I thought.

It’s pretty clear in Texas that they have no love for California. We spoke to a real estate agent who told us to get our California license plates changed immediately.

People would say, ‘You’re welcome here as long as you vote the right way.’ Every single person I met — and I’m not kidding — taught me how to vote.

After a while, I started to get annoyed and thought, “Why do you think I’m here?”

I was really depressed in Texas. I always dreamed about home. I know it takes time, but I started meeting people who have been in Texas for 10, 15, 20 years, and most of them said it took them years to get used to Texas.

It really bothered me. Life is short. I was approaching 50. I realized I didn’t want to feel that way for years to come.

During the months I was in Texas, I was looking for something that would make me fall in love with the state. We took a road trip to San Antonio because I had heard the Riverwalk was really cool. But when we got there, I was surprised there wasn’t much else.

Another thing that really surprised me, because everyone’s talking about the homeless problem in California, is that there were a lot of homeless people in San Antonio, and the same in Dallas.

Texas wasn’t as cheap as I thought it would be.

In my experience, I’ve found that Texas is not that much cheaper than California, and everyone knows the property taxes are horribly high.

But Texas also has no income tax, and I figured that because there’s no income tax, the prices for services like going to the salon would be the same or lower than they would be in California. But they’re actually a lot more expensive.

Groceries cost about the same. Gas was a lot cheaper, but almost all of the roads in Texas are toll roads, so you still have to pay to drive.

I also had to take a pretty big pay cut. As a teacher in Texas, you’re going to take a $20,000 to $30,000 pay cut.

Meanwhile, my daughter got a server job at Red Robin and her base pay was $2.35 an hour plus tips. Texans don’t tip much.

We only stayed for four and a half months.

Initially, I had committed to staying there for at least two years: I rented a ranch in California for two years.

However, while in Texas, I flew back to California frequently to visit my oldest son, and during one of those visits, my former principal told me there was an open position.

The month after I left for Texas, my school dropped the vaccination requirement, so it was no longer an issue for me.

I told my husband that I was going to leave the decision up to him. I knew he didn’t like Texas either, but we had just moved at my request. He thought about it until the last day and finally said, “Hey, let’s move back.”

It was hard to leave my family in Texas, but I was really happy with my family in California.

We were home by mid-July.

I couldn’t come back home right away because I had signed a two year lease on the ranch. We rented a house in Murrietta, next to Temecula. I was so happy and glad to be home.

Then, three weeks after renting the house in Murietta, the ranch tenant called and said they needed to move and wanted to terminate the lease. I got my house back.

I’m glad I moved, even if everyone thinks I’m crazy.

I learned a valuable lesson, and it was an expensive and inconvenient lesson, but I learned that freedom means different things to different people.

For some, freedom might mean not having to vaccinate their kids. For others, freedom might have to do with gun rights. For me, I’ve learned freedom means having peace and adventure in my daily life — a path outside my front door, the ability to step outside my mind and escape.

In Texas, I kept asking everyone, “What does freedom mean?” but never got a satisfactory answer as to what that extra freedom specifically was.

Since coming back, I’ve started to see California with whole new eyes, and I’m so grateful for things I didn’t notice before. Everyone is so active here. Everyone is outside having fun, smiling, laughing. Everyone is having adventures.

I miss Texas BBQ. I loved rodeos. I can always go see live music. I don’t like obsession with politics, but I do like Texas patriotism.

But I also realized that politics in California didn’t impact my daily life as much as I felt it did in Texas. I’m not obsessed with politics here, whereas when I was in Texas, it was the main conversation. It was exhausting.

In fact, I came back a little more purple than I started out, realizing that every state, red or blue, has its flaws. No place is perfect.

I really appreciate how California protects the land. I love having beautiful public spaces. Plus, I love that teachers in California are well paid and have great health insurance. I didn’t realize how great California is until I left here.

I want to spend the rest of my life here in California, it’s definitely my happy place.