[siquick]

Depends on your definition of success?

I moved to the other side of the world from where I grew up in my early 30s, and I grew up at the other end of the country from where I was born and lived my early years.

I have a great group of mates I met in my early twenties and still speak with daily on WhatsApp.

As you say they meet up regularly, know each others families well, and they have not left their home area and have been friends since primary school.

They’re all jealous that I have lived an “adventurous and exciting” life and I’m jealous that they have amazingly solid roots.

[dorchadas]

I'm in pretty much this exact situation right now (we actually all left then returned in early/mid 20s after university), and, well, it's still lonely. WhatsApp (or, in our case, Discord) is no substitution for physically being able to meet up. I have friends where I live now, but it's not the same level of depth in the friendship, where we'd just go to each other's houses and shoot the shit for hours about everything and nothing (as we've done since high school) and I feel that is something I didn't realise I wanted and was missing until I moved. It's actually got me seriously reconsidering returning. Gonna be hard leaving after Christmas this year.