How we got here...

We hung on too long, that's how.

We hung on too long trying to make a life in our home state of West Virginia. God love it. It's beautiful. All our family is there. Our life was there.

From the time we got married we've struggled with my husband's jobs moving out of the state. There just isn't enough money or enough work to keep a company in West Virginia right now. We'd get wind that something was up a couple months ahead of time and that was usually good enough for my husband to find yet another job.

Do you know how that can start to affect a person? A family? Nothing was ever settled. We've moved 10 times and been married for 8 years. And we spent 3 years in the house we eventually bought. 3 years and 2 jobs.

We should have never gone back to WV after we moved away the FIRST time. One of my husband's companies sent everyone notices that their job would be disappearing in two months. We moved in with my folks to save money and looked for a job. We ended up in Mississippi. It was so far from home. And HOT. Lord it is hot down there. We were essentially miserable wanting to go home. Missing family. Feeling like strangers in a strange land. We were in an apartment, and that had a lot to do with it. I think we could have stayed there and we would have learned to love it.

I remember a lot of good things we did there. We used to jaunt over to Texas and New Orleans for the weekend. Housing was cheap. The beach was 3 hours away. My husbands office was full of people our age with kids. We could have had a very good life there. Looking back, I'm sorry we left.

But, we did. We wanted to go home. After a little over 6 months, we did. A job came open and we nearly ran home. What wouldn't fit in the rental truck we tossed in the dumpster. Who cares! We're going home!! Back into my parent's basement. With a 2 1/2 year old.

We spent 4 months in the basement and bought a house. We were so happy! We bought a house, a home of our own! After a year or so and another job change, we started to worry about his job again. We put the house up for sale to move to a better part of the state, and nearly had a full-priced offer. But, we panicked. We didn't want to leave home again. This was our very own home. We and the bank owned it. We put up a fence, added a dog, built a new deck, built a kitchen island, painted and repainted and did some funky things with the garage. We refinanced, bought a camper, had some fertility treatments and prepared to weather it out.

Another job offer comes up. This time in Colorado. Too far. Too expensive. I'm begging J. not to take it. He's not sure we can afford to live there anyway. We decide to stick it out. Come Fall, things are not going well at work, yet again. If we are making another job move, we have to move on from home. We can't hang on there anymore. I can't take the uncertainty. Always in the back of my mind I am wondering if he'll get a notice they are closing. He's running out of companies to work for in WV. The state doesn't have money for the projects they've already had designed. The certainly don't have money for new projects. So, where does that leave a bridge engineer?

Well, it leaves us moving out of state. Unable to sell the house for what we owe. No one is buying. Our builder started a new section of brand new homes cheaper than ours. We clean it up. Drop the price to just enough to pay off the loan. 2 people look at it in 6 months. And one couple only looks at it because they are having one built and wanted to look at some of the options.

We're all (2 adults, one child, one Lab and one American Eskimo)living in an apartment together. In Indiana. We decided that with so much uncertainty in the world, we'd rather keep our family together and take our lumps. And lumps we surly took. The saga about the house is long and personal. I won't give the details, just to say, we lost money. Lots of money.

We found a rental here in Indiana. With a big shady yard. A sweet little house with a fireplace. The owners didn't care that we had two dogs and a kid. They wanted a family to love on the house like they did. We're paying a bit more than market value but it's worth it to us. To have the yard and the freedom to paint and landscape. It's not ours but it's the next best thing. We can stay here indefinitely. I have a clothesline and we have 30-some trees. That's a lot of leaves to rake, though. We have a wood shed, a pool, a covered porch. We found a Church we all enjoy.

There's been good and bad in the past 10 months we've been in the state. We had to give up my husband's car. On days I need a car, I take him to the bus stop. At 6:30. Let's say, I'm learning to love being home. I don't do the 6:30 thing very often. But at least it is an option. Buses are unheard of in WV. It's turning around though and starting to be MORE good than bad. I can appreciate that more than you know. I've learned a lot about myself and my family.

Sometimes being happy is hard work. You think it should come naturally but it doesn't always. Sometimes you have to look into the face of uncertainly and FIND a reason to be happy. Every move and every new job would cause me to say that I couldn't do this again. We have to settle and stop. But, we'd still do it again and again. We'd hold it together one more time. As a family, we have drawn closer. Being away from all our safety nets has actually been good for us. We have to depend on each other. We have to be creative.

Going home for a visit is FUN! Now when we visit it is an event. There are dinners planned and schedules cleared, all for us. It's amazing and fun. I'm having a big family Christmas at our house this year. I'm so excited about that!! I sometimes wish we could see everyone more often. But, at the same time, those visits are more special.

It's starting to come together here. It's starting to feel like home. I'm learning to let go of the constant panic, wondering when the shoe is going to drop. Maybe it still will as nothing is certain. But, I can tell you I've learned to appreciate some things. My family is healthy. We LOVE each other. We know how to stick together, and we don't apologize for our choices any more. Life is far too short for that. I've learned home isn't about 4 walls with your name on a piece of paper. It is about what is in your heart. Surrounding yourself with familiar things, things bought with love and sentiment. I learned that your dream home can become a liability and drag you down gasping for breath and loathing its very existence.

I hope that things work out for us here. That we can stay in this house until we're financially healed. That we can be patient and learn to be part of our community. I hope my husbands job is as promising as we feel it is. I look forward to a long cold winter curled up in front of my fireplace. I hope to someday learn exactly what the heck a "Hoosier" is.

We like to think we'll go back to WV some day. Maybe to retire. I always loved Lewisburg. They say, "Almost Heaven" in West Virginia and the state motto is Wild and Wonderful. Although, it should be noted there is some debate between Wild and Wonderful and Mountaineers are always free. (we don't talk about the unfortunate time when "open for business" was on all the signs...we just don't talk about it, ever). Either way, I carry a piece of Heaven in my heart and will always be Wild, Wonderful and Free. For now, that means free to make a new life in a new state.

And, that's it. That's how we go here.