When did you know it was time to move states? What steps did you take to do it?

There’s a yearn in me to move states (in the U.S) I’m sure it’s time. But I’m terrified. 26, only lived with my parents and my partner’s parents/partner. We’re talking about moving and have a spot we talk about all the time. The only thing keeping us here is family and our pets. Living with my in laws has meant we’ve mixed our cats. Idc about the judgement we’ve got 11. We had 6 but took in a stray mom who had 5 kittens and failed to foster. 2 passed away and then father in law brought another stray home randomly one day. Anyways my partner and I are attached to all of them. I can see us leaving 4 maybe 5 and taking the others. But that….is heart breaking to think about. We’re attached to all of them.

That and my family is holding me back. Im the oldest of 3 and I grew up raising them. I see them once or twice a month but every time I do. No matter how annoying they are in their teenage faze, I get the biggest joy seeing them. I’m sure I could fly out to see them or have them go to me but it wouldn’t be as often. No where near where we live. Anywhere we want to move is 15+hrs away driving. I wouldn’t want to do a test move and be somewhere I have no interest in that’s closer.

But my partner and I are both feeling the need to get out of our home town. There’s nothing for us here that we like. I mean it’s home, it’s nice but we don’t have job opportunities that we want or things we want to do. Too much trauma happened. How did you know it was time to move states? What steps did you take to get there, how much money if any did you save, did you do a test run in the place you wanted to go?