To move or not to move? That was the queastion I wrestled with after my son graduated high school this past June. It was not so much the move that was in question, but where we were going to move to that was the unknown. It started out as a joke between me and a friend about me moving out to Wisconsin where she had moved to just over a year ago. She had no one out there with her having broken up with her boyfriend soon after they moved there. I think at some level she knew that if she pestered me enough I might actually cave and move, but in reality she and I both knew that wasn’t very likely.
So what changed? Well, I was willing to entertain such an idea, but it came down to the fact that wherever I moved to my son went, too. If he didn’t want to move over 1,500 miles away from the area he had called home for the past decade then there was no way I would ever make that kind of decision. When I proposed the insane idea of us moving to Wisconsin I told him to Google whatever it is he would want to know about moving to that state then let me know if he would be willing to make such a move within the coming months. I never actually thought I would hear him say that he wanted to move there so imagine my surprise when he came up to me one day and asked “So when are we going to move to Wisconsin?”.
So there I was now faced with the decision of whether to actually move us out to a state I had never visited before based solely on the facts that my good friend lived there, and that the cost of living out there was a third of the cost of living where we currently lived. I was just trying to find us a city in SoCal that I could afford, and now I was faced with whether to have us move halfway across America because the cost of living was so much less. I was terrified to make the final call. Ultimately I decided that if my son was willing to make such a move then I needed to do what was right for both of us. Which meant seriously considering the fact that we would be so much better off financially if we lived there instead of Southern California.
Once I made the decision we were going to move to Wisconsin I then had to figure out how to pay for such a move. The moving of our home was going to cost over two thousand dollars. The days spent traveling would be almost a thousand in itself. Then there was the matter of having the funds on the other end to get us into an apartment, and any other unknown factors I hadn’t thought of pertaining to the move. My stress level was through the roof. In the end I decided to liquidate my 401k at work and to sell my beloved Honda scooter. This would give me just enough money to make the move.
And it did. Kind of. We made it here in five days with money to spare, but we haven’t been able to find a place to move into yet which means staying in a hotel in the meantime. My son started a job today (a week after arriving in town), but our money is almost gone and I have yet to land a job for myself. I am still going through the process to land a government job and the other resumes I’ve sent out haven’t produced any solid job offers, yet. With just under $200 left in my account, and no future paycheck in site at this moment, I’m having to entertain alternate ideas to get money. Which means I am thinking of selling some of my beloved Dooney & Bourke purses. The only things I can think of that I own that can get us much needed money. If it means money for food and bills then its bye bye purses.
We’ve managed to survive our first week in our new home state well enough, but trying to stay calm and patient is proving to be one hell of a task for me. I keep telling myself that it’s only been a week, that it takes time for life to happen, but my stupid brain refuses to listen to reason. It just wants to run around screaming at the top of its lung that the world is on fire. Stupid brain. You need to calm down so my anxiety can take a break. It’s the only way both of us are going to survive this transition. Till that happens I am just going to sit here in my hotel room, sending out resumes and knitting till my fingers hurt while I wait for replies. Patience. I will try to achieve it even if its the last thing I do.
Thoughts From An Exhausted Woman 