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By the time I left DC in July 2007, I was about worn out.

A new life in my 350-year-old hometown in Connecticut seemed awfully appealing after months of trying to stave off foreclosure on my condo, an income that had gone south and stayed there, a relationship murdered by a man who refused to accept his own feelings for me, and a medical diagnosis that had knocked me for a loop.

For a long time I’d felt as if the only time I could “let down my hair” (and I say this as a bald/shaved-headed man) was when I wasn’t in DC. It’s an understatement to say the city is obsessed with work—and itself.

“Conversations” about friends’ unending career issues became much less interesting when I was trying to figure out how I’d pay for the medications I needed to stay alive, or where I’d live when the bank took the condo I’d spent so much time and money renovating.

I was also becoming aware, when I applied for “real” staff writing/editing jobs, that employers today are looking for people with senior-level experience (which I have) who will work for entry-level wages (which I won’t). Payment for freelance writing has also plummeted to the level of insult.

Even before these trying times, I had been restless for a change after 22 years in Washington. But I didn’t expect it would take a karmic pigpile to make me leave!

Lunch in my hometown with the editor of the newspaper—who had profiled me when Victory Deferred was published in 1999—got me thinking about something I’d never expected to think about: moving back to Norwich.

I guess you could say I fled the city of 37,000 when I went away to college in 1976. I wanted to travel and live in a big city, to have a bigger life than I could have in what was already feeling like a small, suffocating place.

So when Jim told me about reporting jobs opening at the Norwich Bulletin, and suggested there might be a job for me if I was interested, I was intrigued. In fact it was all I could think of as I drove back to Washington. I asked myself whether I had worked through my “issues” about Norwich (and my family) to the point that I could look at it through new eyes and appreciate its charms.

Then my sister, who lived in Norwich, asked if I’d be interested in opening a coffeehouse together. “Yes!” I said immediately. I had long thought that if I ever had a “second career” it might be as the owner of a restaurant. After spending many hours over many years in coffeehouses, owning one seemed it could be just the thing.

I set about researching the coffee business, talking with owners, reading books, taking notes on what I liked and didn’t like in the coffeehouses I visited. I developed a business plan that incorporated all the things considered necessary for a successful shop—including coffee roasted in-house, free WiFi, professional and friendly baristas, a fun ambience, and targeted marketing aimed at bringing in the kinds of people who would enjoy a place like I aimed to make Downtown Joe.

The idea of owning a business in Norwich, contributing to the downtown’s renaissance, and offering my skills and talents to my hometown was very appealing to me.

After moving to Norwich, I contributed occasional feature stories to the newspaper, but didn’t go to work there. I did, however, use the networking and schmoozing skills I’d developed in two decades in Washington to meet the city’s mayor, city council and other movers-and-shakers. I needed their support to help me find one or more investor who would put up the capital I didn’t have. I was the one with the vision, marketing savvy and passion, but I was most definitely not the one with the bucks it would take to make Downtown Joe a reality.

Cognizant of the power of public relations, I strategically chose activities in the community to get known and inspire interest in my business plans. I organized a sixtieth anniversary rededication ceremony for the Norwich Memorial Rose Garden, after writing a front-page story for the paper about the deer eating the prize-winning roses. My story and the discussion it sparked seemed to have nudged the city finally to put up a beautiful ornamental fence around the garden to keep out the deer.

I served on other committees aimed at helping the city showcase itself for a national beauty contest for cities and revitalizing the downtown.

I volunteered as the writer/editor for the mayoral campaign of a member of the city council whose independence, intelligence and vision for the city I admired. I even ran for the city council myself when he asked me to join him on the third-party Norwich for Change Party ticket. Neither of us was elected, though we both had very good showings at the polls last November.

Downtown Joe still hasn’t happened. I’ve had would-be investors who said they’d back me but then withdrew, others who offered money but not nearly enough. Most recently I proposed to the library to open a coffeebar in the space they created in their three-year-old building to be a café. I offered to pay them 25 percent of my profits in lieu of rent.

The newspaper reported on my proposal, and it generated a good deal of interest. But the library, like Norwich in general, is stuck in a rut where new ways of thinking, no matter how tried and proven they may be elsewhere, are viewed with suspicion at best. I’ve confirmed what I suspected all the years I lived “away” (as New Englanders describe everywhere beyond their own towns).

Now the library is talking about partnering with the city’s social services department to create some sort of job training program for recovering addicts. What they will train them to do is an unanswered question, though I don't expect it will be to work in libraries. They seem oblivious to the fact that residents already say they avoid downtown because of their perception that its streets are lined with addicts, muggers and robbers (this is all laughable to this big city boy).

After three years of spinning my wheels and getting no traction, I’m about ready to flee once again.

I haven’t found a way to make a living in this blue-collar place. My white-collar resume listing my top-shelf education and experience has done me little good here.

I subbed for a while at the high school, my own alma mater. The paltry $85 a day I was paid—when I was making $85 an hour for my work as a consulting writer/editor in Washington—didn’t cut it. I’ve interviewed for jobs teaching composition at the local community college and other substitute teacher jobs, but they haven’t panned out for reasons unknown to me. I’ve reconnected with organizations I’ve consulted for, but not one project has come of it.

By last fall I could no longer afford my apartment in a renovated old mill building by one of the city’s three rivers, and moved in with my (extraordinarily generous) mother.

Hear me when I say: At age 51, after living on my own for 30 years, I do not want to live with my mother, much as I love her and appreciate her generosity.

Like so many people in these recessionary days, I have struggled to figure out how much of my situation is within my control and what exactly I can do to improve my fortunes.

I can’t see myself staying stuck in a place—geographic and circumstantial—that is causing me so much distress for any longer than it takes me to formulate and execute an escape plan.

The question is whether I should stick to my “first love,” my writing career, and try again to support myself through freelancing, try to find a “real” job, or do something else altogether.

I have no interest in returning to Washington, as some have suggested. Much as I love cities, I’m not convinced I want to live in a big city again and most definitely not that city.

I love the area where I live now—the rolling hills, the rustic farms, the coast, and closeness to Boston and New York. I’ve made some friends here I like a lot, and we talk about all sorts of things besides work. And I’d like to stay close to my Mom, which is important to me as I see her getting older.

And so, gentle reader, I end my weeklong blog series on the same ambiguous note that is echoing through my mind and heart these days. I have no idea where the next few months will lead me. But I’ll do my best to be open to what it brings and to cherish what it teaches me.

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Bio: John-Manuel Andriote began his writing career in 1983, reviewing books for the Advocate, the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine. After earning a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Andriote built his career in Washington, DC, over the next two decades. He specialized in reporting on the AIDS epidemic, and in 1999 published Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America (University of Chicago Press). It was followed by Hot Stuff: A Brief History of Disco (HarperEntertainment, 2001). Andriote is also the author of The Art of Fine Cigars (Bulfinch Press/Little Brown) and a privately published history of Washington's Metropolitan Club. He has written feature articles, commentaries, reviews and profiles for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and many other publications. Today Andriote lives in Connecticut, and is working on a revised edition of Victory Deferred for publication in 2011, the 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic.