the sigh heard ‘round the world

Almost a week ago my husband and I were up against the clock to make one of the biggest decisions we’ve faced together. It’s enormity lay not so much in the emotional and spiritual significance (such as the decision to marry or bring children into the world would have) but in the relentless suspension leading up to it and the decidedly differing needs met by opposing choices. In plain English, after 20 months with no employment in our household, my husband was offered a job here in Seattle, where I desperately want to live, and one in Delaware, for a company and a wage that was very attractive to him. It was really the first time we’d found ourselves on opposing sides of a decision. Per usual for us, we both wanted everyone to be happy. But how?

(photo at right was taken in Pennsylvania on our trip out there. photo on the left taken in Washington just after we returned. For a while I felt I was straddling two world. It wasn’t good.)

For weeks we “tried on” living out east. We lived it in our minds, went through pros and cons, researched, even visited.

The morning of the day we were due to give the east coast job our answer we were still agonizing. I kept saying, “Let’s just go. It will be fine. We can come back here someday.” He almost let me make that decision, but I could see it wasn’t fitting for him, a square peg in a round hole. “So, let’s ‘try on’ staying here, with this Seattle job for a few hours and see how you feel. We’ve been doing it the other way around for weeks.”

He did. A few hours later, after pros on top of pros for staying here flew from his mouth, and a building of excitement in my heart, he said “I think we should stay.” And a weight visibly lifted from him. He smiled. He said, “Going east seemed the right thing to do, but this, this feels like the right thing.”

That sudden, eerie, gust of humid air you might have felt last Wednesday… that was me, exhaling for the first time in a long long while. Home. We are home, for good now. Planted, growing, moving forward. Aside the reports of my son’s good health after his premature birth, I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved in my life. I’m home, again, for good. Thank the universe for aligning. Thank the love and support given so freely by friends and family all this while. Thank you, anyone, everyone, everything, that wished us well. We are well now.