Back East(ish), our new home.

Every Fall since the dawn of man, B has mustered the courage to complete ridiculously long and detailed applications for other academic positions. Elsewhere. His dream has always been to be at a small liberal arts college where people drink thick, black coffee, grow long, dark beards, and wear, in the winter, socks with Birkenstocks (and annoy me with poetry that doesn't rhyme).

And so each year we wait and wait. And wait. We've really come to accept that the opportunities just aren't there. There are so many good people out there almost just like him (but not quite), applying for very few positions in a limited number of good places.

When I left DC to move here to the Midwest, I had a lot of ideas about what it would be like. I was excited to be here, to get married, to settle in. I was not excited to live in The Middle. Some part of me has resented that we have been (all along) at the mercy of B's career.

But it's because of your job we're still here!, I've thought at least 7,234 times. It's your job (ugh)!

I've felt like, I don't know, we're of a different era? Chasing gold in the only place we think we can make it. What happened to moving somewhere you want to be and looking for work? Wasn't that how I envisioned this? Riiiiiiiiight. Anyway, we always new this place was, for us, temporary.

This place, we said, a place where people hardly ever come or leave.

Strange, here. But here we were, educated, fun! transients, starting out a new life together, open to the possibilities this place would bring. And because I am not an appendage, obviously, I didn't just sit around and wait to be moved. I went about creating my life, starting and maintaining a career that has always been my right fit. I have persevered and thrived here, independently and with the help of a very small support system. I have established a close network of professional contacts and colleagues with whom I've developed and grown. I love these people and, more than every so often, this place.

This place has become my home and I know the area like I've known other places that I've loved. We had our first home here, our first child. We made friends we love.

And yet.

It hasn't always been easy. We have, at times, felt very isolated---something that living among other transients in an urban environment hasn't helped. We've worked tirelessly to make our house the kind of place we hoped others would be attracted to when we were ready to leave. This whole we're leaving thing has been in the works for about 5 years. It has always been when?

And now we know.

B has accepted a very generous offer at a very fabulous place in a tiny town east of here. We will settle comfortably back in the right time zone, no closer to my family, but closer to the little dream we've been chasing---his of a better school with more opportunity and mine of a place where our kids can go through K-12 with the same people (and where I can rule the PTA!).

Hope. And yay!

We're off on our next life adventure. Next spring, anyway, when we pack up our things and head to Maine for the summer (before relocating to our final destination), leaving St. Louis behind.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving.

Gobble, gobble.