ScottJ
05-05-2012, 09:31 PM
No reflection on the area at all. It was really nice but just wasn't meant to be. Below is my outpouring of the whole thing.
I'm really glad to be back home though.
Well, that certainly didn’t go as planned. What I’m calling the great relocation experiment of 2012 has ended with me back in Vandiver, AL where I started. I’ve been a little secretive about this because I feel like a bit of a failure because of how it all played out. But, the very personal outpouring I’m about to do is part of getting past that.
It happened all at once in the latter third of March. I had a couple of “grass is not greener” sort of events at work and my house of cards just collapsed. Before that I was “all in” as they say. My wife and I had already switched our drivers’ licenses, we’d both bought three year resident fishing licenses. We’d taken a CWP class at $60 each and I had sent in my application with its $50 non-refundable fee.
But the fact was we weren’t going to be able to sell the house without taking a huge loss or possibly just walking away and letting it go to foreclosure. I thought I was emotionally prepared to do that but it turns out I wasn’t. Facing that made me realize just how much I missed home. By “home” I mean my house, my Church home and the “family” that comes with it and our community. I had thought I was appreciative of all those blessings but it seems I’d only scratched the surface. Some of that feeling really confuses me because neither my wife nor I are from Vandiver, we have no relatives of any sort here yet when we moved away we missed it as though we’d both lived there all our lives rather than just 9 years.
So, facing this reality I inquired about opportunities that would allow me to move back. In a mere three weeks I was able to find something (odd after looking for 18 torturous months to escape before). Unfortunately it does involve an 8% pay cut so I ask for supportive prayers as we work through that.
I still believe all of this experience was a God thing. We came down over Easter weekend for the Casting Crowns concert. I was able to work my interview into the Friday before. We attended our Church home of Pleasant Grove Baptist on Easter Sunday and my pastor delivered a sermon that really spoke to me. The gist of it was that when facing challenges we should pray for strength and endurance rather than deliverance. For the 18 months I’d spent trying to get out of the job before moving to SC I’d prayed for deliverance. I believe God finally said “fine, but here’s what it’ll cost you”.
I believe He also is teaching us many different things with the experience. I think he wants us to be better stewards of our blessings and the pay cut is part of it because it’ll force us to live on a stricter budget rather than the sort of budget we had before.
He’s also teaching me to not let job stresses spill over into my personal life. I thought I’d done pretty well with that before but as I look back now I think I’d let myself slide into borderline depression back toward the end of 2011. The entire Fall of the year including Thanksgiving and Christmas is a barely memorable blur to me because I was letting my loathing of my job pollute my whole outlook.
But even if there is no other benefit to any of this the experience has certainly drawn my wife and I closer than we’ve ever been over our 16 years of marriage (not that we were distant before) and opened up new depths of love and understanding between us. That was certainly worth the price of admission.
I have also managed to shed a bit more my inherent misanthropy. I’m not the sort that accepts friendship well due to some scars from my distant past. I tend to think that if someone helps me out then it’s because they want me to owe them rather than simple selflessness on their part. I’ve had so many examples of selfless friendship displayed to me over the past 4 months that it has to be God whacking me on the head and saying “let it go”. I have nothing but undying gratitude for all those friends who were a part of teaching me that lesson through all this.
So, we’re back with a new mission to do many things better. I pray that I’m up to all the challenges because there are still plenty. I welcome any prayers of support on that.
I'm really glad to be back home though.
Well, that certainly didn’t go as planned. What I’m calling the great relocation experiment of 2012 has ended with me back in Vandiver, AL where I started. I’ve been a little secretive about this because I feel like a bit of a failure because of how it all played out. But, the very personal outpouring I’m about to do is part of getting past that.
It happened all at once in the latter third of March. I had a couple of “grass is not greener” sort of events at work and my house of cards just collapsed. Before that I was “all in” as they say. My wife and I had already switched our drivers’ licenses, we’d both bought three year resident fishing licenses. We’d taken a CWP class at $60 each and I had sent in my application with its $50 non-refundable fee.
But the fact was we weren’t going to be able to sell the house without taking a huge loss or possibly just walking away and letting it go to foreclosure. I thought I was emotionally prepared to do that but it turns out I wasn’t. Facing that made me realize just how much I missed home. By “home” I mean my house, my Church home and the “family” that comes with it and our community. I had thought I was appreciative of all those blessings but it seems I’d only scratched the surface. Some of that feeling really confuses me because neither my wife nor I are from Vandiver, we have no relatives of any sort here yet when we moved away we missed it as though we’d both lived there all our lives rather than just 9 years.
So, facing this reality I inquired about opportunities that would allow me to move back. In a mere three weeks I was able to find something (odd after looking for 18 torturous months to escape before). Unfortunately it does involve an 8% pay cut so I ask for supportive prayers as we work through that.
I still believe all of this experience was a God thing. We came down over Easter weekend for the Casting Crowns concert. I was able to work my interview into the Friday before. We attended our Church home of Pleasant Grove Baptist on Easter Sunday and my pastor delivered a sermon that really spoke to me. The gist of it was that when facing challenges we should pray for strength and endurance rather than deliverance. For the 18 months I’d spent trying to get out of the job before moving to SC I’d prayed for deliverance. I believe God finally said “fine, but here’s what it’ll cost you”.
I believe He also is teaching us many different things with the experience. I think he wants us to be better stewards of our blessings and the pay cut is part of it because it’ll force us to live on a stricter budget rather than the sort of budget we had before.
He’s also teaching me to not let job stresses spill over into my personal life. I thought I’d done pretty well with that before but as I look back now I think I’d let myself slide into borderline depression back toward the end of 2011. The entire Fall of the year including Thanksgiving and Christmas is a barely memorable blur to me because I was letting my loathing of my job pollute my whole outlook.
But even if there is no other benefit to any of this the experience has certainly drawn my wife and I closer than we’ve ever been over our 16 years of marriage (not that we were distant before) and opened up new depths of love and understanding between us. That was certainly worth the price of admission.
I have also managed to shed a bit more my inherent misanthropy. I’m not the sort that accepts friendship well due to some scars from my distant past. I tend to think that if someone helps me out then it’s because they want me to owe them rather than simple selflessness on their part. I’ve had so many examples of selfless friendship displayed to me over the past 4 months that it has to be God whacking me on the head and saying “let it go”. I have nothing but undying gratitude for all those friends who were a part of teaching me that lesson through all this.
So, we’re back with a new mission to do many things better. I pray that I’m up to all the challenges because there are still plenty. I welcome any prayers of support on that.