Big Life Decision

A little over six years ago, my boyfriend convinced me to pick up my life and move from my small town to the Bay Area of California so that he could work more while I finished school. The game plan was that we would finish school and then move back to Sacramento area. Along the way, he decided to go back to school for Tech and got an amazing job opportunity in San Francisco. Since then, he has only moved up and up the ladder of success in his career and become the man that I always knew he could be. I was so surprised at how easily he fit into the life of responsibility while still managing to have an easy going attitude about life. During this time I had just been focusing on getting work experience under my belt as an Interior Designer.

Fast forward to July 2017 when we had our son. We were so excited to be parents and the journey there wasn't an easy one including a miscarriage a few months before we got pregnant with JJ. We enjoyed every minute of our time home together all three of us, bonding and learning about this new life we had. I went back to work full time in October and didn't know what to expect. I had always felt like someone who needed to be doing something. I have a really hard time just "relaxing" even though I know it's necessary to maintain a healthy mental state of mind. After taking care of a newborn every day for three months straight, I was definitely excited at first.

My first month back went pretty well. I was handling a lot of big projects and keeping myself busy, but slowly I started to feel this almost empty feeling. Where we could afford to live in the Bay Area was approximately a 20 minute drive to our jobs when there was no traffic. Anyone who knows this area knows there is ALWAYS traffic. On average it would take us about an hour to get to and from work. When traffic was bad, it could take an hour and a half. This meant our baby was in daycare for 10 hours a day at minimum. My work schedule allowed me to have Wednesdays off because I had to work four hour shifts on Saturdays. I thought this was going to be nice because I figured I could still send the baby to school on that day just for four hours or so, so that I could get chores or errands done, or at the vert least have a few hours to myself! The daycare constantly made me feel guilty for "throwing off his schedule" if I brought him for only a half day. I pretty much had to leave him for full days even on my Wednesday's off for the sake of his "routine". When I added it up, it meant 50 hours a week I didn't get to see my baby. When he started actually having a routine around 10 months old, or going to bed at 7pm and waking up 6am, it meant we only got to spend an hour and half with him when we got home from work. Anyone who works knows that you're exhausted by the time you get home, especially if you deal with the public.

After constantly feeling like I was only giving JJ 50% of my efforts I was beginning to feel that we needed to make a decision about what we were doing. As I mentioned, the entire time our game plan was always to move back to my small town, but we kept pushing it off. It slowly turned to, "Well our house is a great investment with the Bay Area housing market, we should just wait until it's worth a million dollars and then we can get everything we want". We kept telling ourselves that was the right decision and we could just wait a few more years and hold out until we could really financially be comfortable.

In May of 2018 we took a trip to Lake Tahoe. Mostly because my parent's house is on the way and they are always looking for opportunities to watch the baby. We left the baby with Nana and Grandpa for the weekend, and made our way up the mountains. We made it to about Placerville when all of the sudden Joel said he felt like work stress was causing him to miss out on things in our personal lives. He continued to tell me that the turmoil at work along with our commutes and me working on Saturdays made him feel like we could never go do anything as a family. He was right, we never took the time to go to the zoo, or take our son to the park because we were constantly tired and it never seemed to work into our "schedules". I know there are families that are able to make the time, but we just aren't one of them. There was always something that needed to be done around the house or we were trekking back and forth to my parents house an hour and a half away so that we could spend time with them. The second he said this, I was 100% on board. I had the same feelings for months but didn't want to say anything because I didn't want him to give up his job and success.

Slowly we decided that he would start applying for jobs in that area and then once he got one, we would make the transition to sell our house and move. He got a great job offer from a company, but it still meant we had to move and be a good distance from my parents. Joel travels for work, so when he is gone I have no help with the baby at all. My mom can only visit on weekends and my sister is really busy with school and working full time. They make the efforts, but it's still really difficult on me. When he was offered the job, I asked him if his company would consider letting him work remotely. This means that he could work from anywhere because his job is something he ca do through skype and online. He laughed at first, but then started to think about it. He finally asked them, and they said that would be fine. We couldn't believe it!

Over the course of the following months we took the plunge and put our house on the market, and started looking for a new place. Now, we had done this before. The whole selling and buying another house, so it wasn't our first rodeo. It would've been a lot scarier if it was something new to us. Fortunately, it all worked out and we were able to find our dream house and got an offer on our house the first weekend. We are currently in the process of packing and getting everything ready. Did I mention my husband's in Russia for two weeks for work as we speak? Oh yeah! It just further proves that we made the right decision to move our family.

Today I dropped JJ off for his last day of daycare. They are so sad to see him go, and I am so terrified of making sure I teach him all the things he needs to know since he will be home with me for the time being. I don't plan on returning to work until the beginning of next year, and even still don't know if I will or not.

This all sounds like it fell int place so easily, but I assure you it took us years of thinking and weighing pros and cons to come to this decision. In the end, time is something you don't back. My first baby is already a year old and I have no idea where all that time went. I don't ever want to look back on my life and say that I could've done something to change it for the better and just sat there and did nothing. We will be moving a half a mile down the road from my parents in my home town. The same town I wanted to leave so badly so many years ago. It's funny how life works sometimes, and I can attest to how having a baby changes literally everything. He has been our greatest adventure together and I can't wait to see what this new adventure has in store for us once we slow down and take the time to enjoy our lives together. I encourage everyone to take a minute and think about what you're doing. What are you working so hard for? For some people success and money is enough, but for me I crave feeling wholesome. I want to have that close knit family life, and be able to show our children that there are things more important than money out there. Take a risk people! You never know what could happen if you don't.

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