Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I was out late for a "school night" yesterday evening with the fabulous Blogging Mamas of Nearby Suburb. I so love hanging out with them, and being from way the heck down here it's kind of a rare thing.

The question was posited last night: Why don't Mr. Milkweed and I just stay in this part of OH? Then, we could move to Nearby Suburb and live happily ever after!

Last night, I was convinced of our utter insanity for trying to move back to VA. Sure, we'd be closer to family, but the same set of parents that are always coming out to help us in OH is going to be the same set of parents trying to help us in VA. That is to say: shifting state lines isn't going to magically turn things with the other set around. My relationship with them has downshifted into this weird polite-but-distant twilight mode that it seems to be destined to stay in as long as I don't abandon all my principles and publicly declare that I've suddenly turned into a mini-me of my dad, which let me tell you is about as likely to happen as President Obama developing superpowers. Whilst aisle-switching. And dyeing his hair green (Happy St. Paddy's Day!!!).

So I began a half-tipsy, exhaustified search for jobs for Mr. M in local school districts, but I was coming up empty empty empty. Correction-- I did find one in a rather ritzy suburb district, and he's going to apply, but I'm sure the internal applicants and hungry certificate holders from at least five counties away have been circling the kill for days now. *sniff sniff* Fee, fie, foe, fum. I smell the blood of an English teaching position.

A night's sleep later, while I sit here nursing the largest glass of water I could find in my kitchen, I not only remember our reasoning for wanting to move but realize the fantastical thinking taking place last night.

First of all, there are more jobs available in VA, simply because there are several parts of the state to which we're willing to move (some in areas of "critical need"), and if we stay in OH we're not willing to move outside of our area.

Secondly, it really DOES suck to realize that you're always nine hours away from any sort of no-holds-barred help, which is to say the raw kind that family can provide-- "Hi, Mom, we're going to this wedding and Eva's coming over, so clear your calendar because you didn't need to go mallwalking anyway," vs. "OK, you have a doctor's appointment and I have to work and we don't really know anyone well enough to ask them to watch Eva, and we've already called in a couple of favors in the last couple of months from friends anyway, so let's put our heads together and agonize about it for three days, and then I'll just call off work again and risk the wrath of the Dewey Decimal system." The latter way is how we've been functioning since we really can't afford any kind of paid childcare, and I can't even wrap my brain around how to keep that up once another newborn enters the picture. I know, whine, whine--we'd do it, but it would be even harder than it is now.

Thirdly, I love VA. I do-- VA is for lovers, and I love it and it loves me, with all its mountains and rivers and beaches and valleys and snobbish/funky/country college towns and my friends E and C, both of whom have kids and would love to see more of me and Eva, and my lost-and-found friend M, who has been such a help to us on this job search, and my forever friend T, who actually lives in North Carolina but might as well live in VA. I dream almost weekly of the place where for eight years I went to summer camp on the James River, and I wake up thinking how wonderful it would be if Eva could one day be initiated into the Old Order of Chanco and learn all the words to The Pruney Song.

And I do think about the relationship with the set of parents that is currently on "sleep" mode, and I wonder if it might be improved if we moved closer. I think it might be, after a long time and some turns for the worse, and as they age and I age it's no small thing to try and do the best you can and decide to love someone anyway.

In a return to practicality: as much as I love Nearby Suburb, I'm not sure about the chances of us actually moving there if Mr. M got a job in a local school district. Maybe in a few years, but until then we'd most likely stay right where we are, which just brings home how much we need to find a better church community and how badly I need to find a group of Moms in This Community that are witty and sarcastic and down to earth and a little more like me than the absolutely fine and perfectly nice but not-so-close friendships I've made in playgroup. Mom-Dating is intimidating, to say the least, but I may need to find a way to do it. I have no idea how, though. I never see the same faces at the park from day to day (aside from the really polite Eastern European dad and his little boy, but, you know-- language barrier).

So all this verbal vomit is just to say that while we've opened a side channel in our job finding efforts dedicated to staying here, the main push is going to have to be towards staying in VA. It just makes better sense to me in a lot of ways, and there are more, but Eva's waking up and I need to end this before it swallows the entire front page of the blog.

Here. It's a Christmas tree made from hubcaps.



Thanks for reading.