Monday, August 24, 2009

Tip, seesaw, tip

Here's the happy news in the M+T Life Status Report: we are incredibly lucky to have one another, we go home every day to a place that we like and furry friends we love, we have fantastic friends around, and we live in a town that offers more distractions than two people could possibly hope for.

Here's the rest of the Report: Distractions are not enough. And while we are perfectly comfortable here, we go through our days feeling fairly disconnected from what matters most to us, a sentiment that becomes more difficult to stomach as time goes on. Living as far away as we do from our families isn't just an issue of travel or prioritization. It impacts every decision we make, every way we think about our future, and has us in a holding pattern until we can figure out where/when/how to jump start our Real Life. We feel particularly vulnerable after weekends like this one, when we move mountains in order to spend just a couple of precious days with our favorite people, only to know at the end of it that once again, there is just never enough time.

Sometimes I imagine us teetering at the center of a seesaw, waiting for life to tip us in one direction. There is family pressure and a desire to be closer and make life easier on one side. Then on the other side, there's the hope that if we hold out long enough, all the stars might align for us so that a big move will be a bigger professional and financial opportunity than it is a setback. But that seesaw doesn't seem to want to tip either way, and so we remain distracted.

We've reached that precarious point in the year when we admit to ourselves that we will be here for another season. And again, this is not a bad thing, just more teetering in the center. So all the concerts we bookmarked for fall not knowing whether we'd be here or not, we can now buy tickets for. And all the trips we have planned for fall, we can go ahead and book them departing from DFW. Time marches on, whether we're calling it our Real Life or not. But as for when a progression of the calendar will feel like an actual step forward... that remains to be seen.

Scenes from our happy table at The Place this weekend:



8 comments:

  1. You have no idea how much I can relate to this. Both my family and my husband's live in Indianapolis and we live in Cleveland...a move we made for his job 5 years ago. We do not want to be here...but the job market is so bad that he cannot find anything to save his life! (as an aside...he's look at Texas! weird...)

    Anyway...we have also made that decision (just this weekend) to rent again instead of buy. We don't want to end up stuck somewhere we don't want to be...but gosh...to rent again when the market is so great to buy!?! So, real life, for us too, will have to wait!

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  2. Oh, I hear ya! Our families are, at the minimum, a 3 hour flight away, or 18+ hours by car.

    But the thing is, after years of saying "we'll move back east," I've finally made peace with the fact that we may never move back east...and I'm fine with it. Liberated, actually. Being away from our families is what it is. It's our reality and what we've known for like, 10 years now.

    Plus, what it's really all about is this: I really can't think of where I would want to live back there. We've become so spoiled with living here in Colorado! Nothing back east compares.

    Well, maybe the beach....which, holy hell, I miss the beach!

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  3. Am I a bad friend if this is happy news for me?

    I kid, I kid (kinda). I'm so glad you had a wonderful weekend though - and cheers to new opportunities somewhere out there on the horizon!

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  4. As a stranger in a strange (but wonderful!) land myself here, I can relate. For me, it's more a factor of my friends vs. family back home, but still, that slight unease at the thought of settling in is the same.

    Sounds like you & T are living life to the fullest where you are, which coincidentally seems to be the best way of happening upon Big Important Life Decisions (as well as having fun)!

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  5. Sigh. This sounds so familiar. Well in the meantime we can enjoy our concerts and travels and good company, eh?

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  6. I bet this (new) year with offer a lot of clarity. A decisions been made and now 'stuff' is gonna go in motion. Enjoy.

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  7. This hits home for me, too. My parents are in Dallas, but we have no idea how long they'll stay there. We're in South Carolina and live five minutes from Todd's parents. But I want to live close to my parents and love the idea of moving somewhere else. My husband just started his own business, so moving is out of the question. Now that I'm able to stay home, long trips to visit my parents (where ever they're living) are an option. I just wish they could pop over for dinner on a Saturday night.

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  8. Oh wow... so many of us have the same dilemmas! Good to know we're not the only ones. :-) Thanks, everyone!

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