Ch-ch-ch-changes

Big changes are in store for the W household yet again. Since I last posted, life has gotten a lot crazier and hectic. But now we have big decisions made and a new direction: East.

The plan all along had been for Alan to start interviewing over the fall, get a couple of job offers and figure out our next step. Unfortunately, the economy put a bit of a crimp in those plans. Not nearly as many companies came to do on-campus interviews, no one was biting, and it was looking grim. I kept telling him it would all work out; I pulled out every cliche in the book to keep his head up. I didn't want him getting too depressed about getting 25 years of education and then being ready for a real job just as the economy tanks harder than it has since the Great Depression.

At long last, Alan gets a call to get his academic life on paper and in presentation format so that he can interview with a company in New Jersey, as well as their location in Boston. Finally, movement.

Interviews in the science community are totally different than any interview you or I will ever see. It's not just a howdy-doody how-do-you do type of deal. It's two 100-hour weeks getting an hour-long presentation on your life's work together to present to your potential future employer and some of your future co-workers. It's three days of all-day interviews, plus dinners at night. My mouth gets dry just thinking about doing eight hours of interviews. I guess when you've prepared for 25 years for a job, it only makes sense that the interview would be a sort of final exam.

Regardless, Alan gets his presentation together and stresses us both out in the process. I know what a monumental task it is for him to put together these presentations, but I must say, he can memorize the crap out of some big sciencey words.

He goes on his interview, does a bang-up job, and alas! GETS JOB OFFERS. For both locations! Hooray! This is the best scenario; we're back on our plan. He was super pumped about Boston and seriously, Boston versus New Jersey? Is it even a question? We are absolutely moving to Boston. I'm ready to go, sight unseen.

But doesn't God do funny things?

In the weird, slow, science hiring process, Alan gets a second, less formal interview. Overlap of the job in Boston requires him to go back to New Jersey to speak with some of the folks there, and I plan to fly out and meet him in Boston for his schmooze-fest there. When he meets me in our room in Boston, he's singing a different tune. He's re-thinking New Jersey.

Um, no. You're not. We're moving to Boston. I wrap my mind around the possibility of not moving to Boston. NO. My brain refuses to cooperate. Even in the bitter Boston cold, IT'S A DONE DEAL.

Then we go on an area tour with a realtor.

Now, don't get me wrong. Boston is beautiful. It's everything you'd imagine Boston to be. Beautiful brick, old buildings. It's got a great vibe. But neighborhood after neighborhood, street upon street, among visions of condo living and sharing yards with five units, tandem parking spaces—or to avoid all of those things, hour commutes to work—I started feeling claustrophobic. I'm not an urban girl. I'm not just not an urban girl, I'm a KANSAS girl. I need yard. I need space. I NEED TO BREATHE.

We decide to extend our trip and drive around Boston more to see what we can see on our own and then drive down to New Jersey to see the area. (I also have it in my head that NJ is north of Massachusetts and every time we talked about it I'd say, "Let's drive up to NJ." Oh, geography.)

So after crossing more states off on my states-to-see list during the drive, we arrive in New Jersey. OH MY GOD, I'M EVEN LESS IMPRESSED WITH NEW JERSEY. Industry. Highway. Grossness.

Thankfully, the company knew what it was doing when it booked us our hotel in New Jersey. We arrive in the most adorable town of Westfield, with a cute little downtown and lots of little shops and restaurants. The realtor shows us town after town, all with accessible grocery stores (for some reason that's insanely important to me), and house after house, all with yards, all with more than two bedrooms. And all of these towns within 15 minutes of Alan's work. AND, we were able to hop on a train and in 35 minutes be in New York City.

Sounds like a done deal, right? For whatever reason, we struggled so much with the decision. For each positive, there was an almost equal and opposite negative. Neither place was screaming our name. We went round and round, made pros and cons lists, talked until we were blue in the face. We slept on it, night after night. We flipped coins. We flipped coasters. We cried. Well, I cried. We decided on New Jersey twice. Then a coin flip landed Boston. And we kept thinking. I kept waiting for one of us to have an epiphany...for one of us to have that "ah ha!" moment where we'd know. But it didn't happen until the morning before we had to decide.

After a talk with my mom and my first moment of true clarity, I wrote Alan an email that I'd made my decision. He wrote back wanting to know what it was. After all of that, I refused to tell him via email. He called awhile later. He'd made a decision too. I silently prayed that we made the same decision because I had no idea what we'd do if we hadn't. Actually, I know what I would have done: Had a mental breakdown.

Luckily, we arrived, separately and together, at the same conclusion. New Jersey made too much sense. Short commute. House. Yard. More pugs. Less chaos. All the chaos we could ever want a short train ride away.

Now that we've made the decision, we haven't looked back once. Now we just have to have all guests arrive at night and close our eyes when driving near the airport.

P.S. Northern California has to be the most beautiful place to live, period.