I think I'll stay

It all started a week ago Monday.

We were in the car on the way to take Greg's mom out for dinner for a post Mother’s day treat.  We had both been feeling the strain and pressure of the past few weeks since finding out that I would need to get EL certified to teach in California.  I had been studying my brains out that afternoon and was feeling so overwhelmed with the ridiculous and specific things I was required to know about California Education Laws.

And so we drove on, frustrated and quiet, each silently mulling over our stresses and anxieties.

Greg interrupted my thoughts.

“What if I told you I didn’t want to do theatre anymore and wanted wanted to become something like a therapist instead?”

“I would support you,”  I replied automatically, not even considering if the question were hypothetical.  Of course it was.   “Would you ever want to do that?” I prodded when Greg was silent.

“I don’t know… Maybe.  One day down the road.  I think it would be cool to help people straighten out their lives.”

“It’d certainly be different…” I remarked nonchalantly.

And that was it.  The end of the conversation.

Greg brought it up at dinner again.  With his parents.  Just that the idea had been floating around in his head.  I lodged it away in a nether alcove of my brain to think about later.

But then again on the way home, Greg brought up the same issue.  “Bonnie.  I’m serious.  I don’t think I can do California.  Just seeing how stressed you are and how difficult everything is… do we really want to blow all of our savings and just move out with neither of us with jobs?"

I shrugged.  It certainly hadn’t sounded preferable, but I was willing.  I am willing to do many stupid things.

“Besides… I don’t think I could do that lifestyle even if I were successful.  And I don't even know that I would be happy in that field.  I don’t want the instability and the late nights.  I want to be able to be home with you and raise a family.  Admit it, Bonnie, the majority of the tension, stress and fighting in our marriage comes from my career choice.”

“That's not true...”  I trailed.

“It is too!  You know it is- stress about money, about savings, about when to move, about priorities, our future family…” 

I didn’t say much more, mostly just listened and tried to sort it all out.  It was so much, so fast.  When you have been planning for two years on a big move, it takes more than a couple of minutes and a few mile markers for you to be right fine and dandy with something completely different.  Greg asked me to understand and begged me to tell him what I was thinking and feeling about everything, but I just couldn't.  My little mind needed to sort it all out first.  Time to process.

When we got home I thought about studying for the CTEL.  But then bagged it.  The motivation, the push, the pressure, it had all evaporated just like that.  I lay down to try to sort out my feelings and woke up three hours later to a splitting head ache.  Three ibuprofens and a swig of diet coke did the trick and I sat staring into the fireplace, hoping everything would somehow sort itself out.

And then, I don’t know why, but I just started to cry.  I felt so completely lost and confused and who even knows what’s the right thing to your life?  What if we were on the brink of making a giant mistake that would somehow totally alter our destiny and happiness and future everything beautiful?  Would I always regret not moving to California with Greg?  Would we never have our big adventure- were we to be just some of the many scared dream chasers, never moving out of state, never striking out on our own?

At the same time, I felt an undeniable sense of relief and peace.  No more California teaching hoops.  No more stressing about $1500 apartment rentals.  No more wondering when we can ever start a family because when will Greg make enough through acting to support us?  It felt as if all of those troubles that were always flying around so wildly in my head had suddenly found a place to rest.

To tell you the truth, I suppose I don’t know why I was crying.  Because girls cry and because life is confusing and once you lay some plans and you think you’ve got it figured out, you realize you know nothing and everything changes on a dime. 

The next morning I woke up strangely calm.  The day was busy and productive and happy, and the more I thought about staying in Utah the more I felt fine with it.  Greg felt the same.

We sat on it all Tuesday and all Wednesday and by Thursday I had decided to ask my boss for my job back.

I marched on in to the principal's office, much like the day I told him, with all the brazen confidence in the world, that I was quitting.  Only this time there was less brazen.  And less confidence.

"Er... there's been a change of plans.  We're looking at staying in Utah.  My husband is going into a different job field.... could I stay?"

My boss had the same look of pain in his eyes that he did when I told him I was quitting, but this time it was mixed with pity.  "Bonnie..." he started.  "You know we filled your position..."

Of course I already knew that, but I suppose in my head I was hoping my principal could invent a position out of thin air for me, or call the new hire back and say, "So sorry!  She changed our mind!  The teacher wants to stay!"  Logically I understood.  Emotionally I was beat up.

"If we have any more English teachers leaving,  we'll hire you back on in a heartbeat.  I would love to have you stay.  I would fight for you, I would, but my hands are tied.  You should start looking for other jobs...and if I can do anything to help you get hired on anywhere, you just let me know."

And so Thursday  the job search began in Utah.  Only this time it was much easier.  Because I know people and I know the schools and I know the system.  Thursday afternoon I talked to my friend who emailed her principal who said she had heard from another principal that there was an opening at a nearby high school.  I hadn't even done a screening interview for that school district but I figured, "Ah, to heck with it" and showed up at the end of the day on Friday with a skirt and a resume.

"I'd like to talk to the principal," I demanded.  I was jobless and completely vulnerable and that sort of situation calls for a false sense of pride and arrogance.  Or something.

The principal wasn't there, but I was directed to a vice principal who was out patrolling the halls, surrounded by teenagers anxious for their weekend to start and teachers full of complaint.  I couldn't get a word in edgewise as a teacher yapped his ear off. so I stood there real awkwardlike, next to the man, for probably six or seven minutes before he realized I was waiting to talk to him.

I knew the timing wasn't ideal and I knew the place was completely chaotic, but I chucked my resume at him and blurted out, "I heard you have an English opening!  I was going to move to California and now I'm not, but I resigned from Copper Hills and they filled my position so I want to work here now!"  The man was taken aback, no doubt, but also intrigued.  He promised he would talk to the principal, but he thought the position had most likely been filled.  They had been interviewing all week.

Imagine my surprise on Monday afternoon when I got a call from the principal.  "Can you come for an interview?" he asked.
"Sure... when?"
"Tomorrow?"

Which was how on Tuesday after school I found myself sitting in the conference room at the high school interviewing for a job I didn't know existed and wouldn't fathom interviewing for a week ago.  What a difference seven days makes!

My strategy with interviews is to go with the truth.  The truth is this: I really like my job and I really like those hoodlum teenagers.  Everything else is just details.

It seemed to work.  The very next morning, in the middle of second period, an email popped up, offering me the position.

I was remarkably happy.  But I didn't jump or scream or giggle.

Instead, I leaned back and read the words twice ,and as I did so I felt an enormous weight lifted off of me.  It was almost as if the burden of the last months- the endless applications, the cbest and ctel tests, the emails to people who don't reply, the phone calls to answerless numbers, the voicemails to responseless machines- the scrimping, the saving, the apartment hunting, the endless stress- it was as if every last part of that melted away as I read those words.  I closed my eyes and uttered a silent prayer and allowed myself for just one moment to bask in that feeling of complete peace.

I know that not everyone believes in God, and that's fine.  But I don't think anyone can deny that there is some kind of deep inner peace that we all desire in our lives.  Sometimes we are filled with it. Sometimes we have not an ounce.  In that moment, reading those words and sitting back in my chair while my students worked on their prompt, I was filled forehead to toenail with that inner peace.  And simple as that, that was how I knew without a doubt that we were making the right decision.

Strangely enough, out of everyone that will inevitably hear of our change of plans, I have been most afraid of the reaction of my blog readers.  Isn't that funny?  I worried and stressed about how to write it, about what to say.  How to explain myself.  It was almost as if I felt that I had let you down in some way by not moving to California- like you wanted to read about my move and now I'm not moving and- she's a fraud!  A total fraud!  But I finally came to the conclusion that moving states with no jobs when you don't feel right at all about it just to please people who read what you write online is totally ludicrous.

Greg will have to go back to school and get a second undergrad degree- this time in behavioral science with an emphasis on family relations.  I'm proud of the guy no matter what he does.  His program should be finished in a year and a half and then we'll do grad school and it will be four to five more years of school for the old chap.  But we can start to plan a little.  Map out our future just a tad  Maybe put down some money on a house and have some nights together and maybe, just maybe start thinking about little future redheaded children.

It isn't what we planned on, and it isn't what we thought we wanted, but it is what's right for us.