Friday, November 23, 2012

Worries for/in the future

I am a planner and an overthinker. Like a lot of personality traits, it can be a good thing, or a really bad thing. I'm pretty good at being organized, but I'm also pretty good at overthinking myself into a tizzy. Fortunately, my chaotic, random and very spontaneous husband is great at keeping me grounded. Unfortunately, I still tend to stress about things that I really shouldn't.

We might have to move. I could go on and on about why I love living where I do. We've been here almost 8 years, we had the house built so it's awesome, we live right next door to our best friends, we have an amazing parish, quite a few friends, and now a wonderful homeschooling group, etc. etc. But my husband took a new job back in January - 60 miles away. That's a haul, and let me tell you, traffic in this area is rotten.

He doesn't have to commute every day, which was a condition of him taking the job. He goes into his office about half the time - 3 times one week, 2 times the next. He works from home the other days. This year, it has been a decent solution. The drive sucks, we spend a lot on gas, and it's hard having him gone 12-13 hours a day when he has to go into his office. But on days he's here, we see a lot of him and it balances itself out fairly well.

However, his company continues to grow - which is an amazingly wonderful thing, especially in this economy. But that also means he's going to need to be in his office more often. The half time commuting thing wasn't a forever arrangement. It was a do-it-until-it-doesn't-work-anymore arrangement. And with the company's growth, he's likely to have to hire one or two people to work under him, and that's going to mean he needs to be there more. Driving all that way 5 days a week just isn't an option. He'd go crazy, for one thing. And it would bury us in gas costs for another.

So we're faced with the strong likelihood of moving, perhaps sometime next year.

I have so many mixed emotions about moving, I'm finding it very difficult to sort through them. On the one hand, I'd love to live close to my husband's job again. His old job was literally 5 minutes away, and that was such a blessing. Depending on where we found a house, we're also likely to live closer to some of my family, which would also be great.

But my whole life is here. I don't have an outside the home job, so everything is here. Many of my friends, my support system, my resources, my routine - it is all here. I'd be starting over in a way I've never faced before, and truth be told, I'm terrified.

I need to work on letting go of the worry over this, especially because it isn't imminent. We aren't ready to put our house on the market or make this huge change, so I have time. But the planner/overthinker in me wants to know what we're doing, when we're doing it, how it's going to work, etc.

I struggle with leaving tomorrow's worries for tomorrow, but I guess this is one of those times I'm called to stretch myself and grow in virtue a little bit. Even though this one is giving me growing pains.

2 comments:

Linda said...

I just made a move 500 miles away from where I had lived all my life so I understand the stress of moving. I am still struggling with a support network, and finding a homeschooling group, and keeping in touch with friends I left behind. The thing that was best about the move is that my daughter's homeschool curriculum is online (we use Time4Learning) and that didn't change at all. Home School has been a blessed constant when everything else is turned upside down. Since you would be within commuting distance for special homeschool group functions, consider looking at the homeschool groups in the area you might move to, and see if they have a forum, or mail string or something you could join remotely, just to start getting some idea of how the new homeschool group will work. I wish you luck, and hope that moving doesn't stress the planner in you out too much!

Claire said...

Thank you! That's a great idea. I've poked around online, looking for homeschool groups in the area we might move. Connecting with people will help. I am certainly fortunate in that we don't have to move so far!