The Best Laid Plans

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” ~ Robert Burton

Ah, the best laid plans. How true indeed for the topic of this latest blog. I hate to admit when I’ve made a mistake. And I make many of them. I’m not a perfect person, a perfect wife and certainly not the perfect parent. But my heart is always in the right place. And that was definitely the case with this move to Michigan.

I wanted to give my children a bigger circle of family to make their lives fuller. I wanted to give them the best education. I wanted to make some amends before it was too late. I wanted my husband to reconnect with the family members he’s always been so close to.

We knew this move was a gamble. We knew the job market was less robust. The salaries were on a different level. We knew the cold and gloomy winters can wear thin. But yet we came.

We had been trying to come back since the first job situation uprooted us. And despite the risks, we took our chances for the greater good. Mainly for the good of our children.

Things were great. We found the house of our dreams. Michigan is a beautiful state. We were glad to be in familiar territory again.

But it hasn’t been without woes. The very reasons we worked so hard to come here began to show itself as a romanticized version of how things would actually go. Some relationships unexpectedly fell apart. Some relationships remained unchanged and whether far or near, the bonds would never tighten. Amends were never made, despite the hopes and dreams.

We also didn’t anticipate just how far living an hour plus away would be. Some we are even farther from. Unfortunately, we aren’t in a “I was just dropping by” distance. It takes more effort and planning to connect than it would if we were closer. Everyone has their own lives and we all found ourselves busy or tired and not always in the mood to make the extra effort.

We quickly found out that when we would do the visiting, it wasn’t so easy with 3 children. One gets car sick and / or irritable, the other just HATES car rides longer than twenty minutes and would always have an emergency potty crisis right in the middle of our trips. And my oldest said that she didn’t like the drive because she spent so much time on long bus routes for school.

As our Shangri-La began to quickly fade, my husband started coming home almost daily with a look of bewilderment on his face. “I don’t know what’s going on with my job,” he would say. “Things are changing and stuff is going on and I’m confused about what’s happening.” I could feel the tension rising. “What does this mean?!?” I would ask. My worry was not well hidden.

My husband never wants to put his stressors onto me, so everything was always going to be “fine.” But I could see the concern. The mood changes. I wasn’t so sure that he was actually convinced about what he was telling me.

One day, he says “I think they might close the local office here.” I panicked. He reassured me that he thought he would keep his job and be able to work remotely, but I was not put at ease. The last company he worked remotely for wanted him to move to the new headquarters in South Carolina. Why did we move here again?

We pushed all of our doubts aside and trudged on. And then Fall and Winter set in. The glow of summer was gone and my oldest son hated life. There was a change in him that was extremely miserable. He had always said how much he wanted to go back to Arizona, but he talked about it even more. He would stare out of the window often and ask where the sun was. “Why is it so dark? So rainy? So cold? I hate the cold!!!” he would moan. He became this dark, sullen, cranky child who hated EVERYTHING. His mood was exactly what I was fighting.

I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). The lack of sun and dark winters causes a depression that I had to fight every year when I lived in this area before. I had gotten a better grip on it in later years, but it never went away. Coming back here after a reprieve was difficult to say the least. I question if my son’s change in mood is related to the same issue. I simply don’t know, but growing up in the desert made for a difficult adjustment for him.

I would ask my daughter how she was liking it here on the regular and her responses were a range of “I like it” to a more recent “I’m giving it a chance.” She just seemed so “meh” about it. I just wanted someone to put my mind at ease and shout “I love it here! This was the best move ever.” But it wasn’t happening.

We were all secretly (or not so secretly) having regrets. We weren’t really getting the pay off to make the sacrifices feel worth it. And we made some serious sacrifices behind the scenes. Anytime I even mentioned Arizona in passing, my husband would say “We should have stayed.”

One day, all of our doubts and worries came to the surface and both my husband and I came to the conclusion that we both wished we never left Arizona. It was apparent the whole family did. After much discussion, we decided that what’s done is done and we have to figure out how to make this work, despite our regrets. End of discussion. Or so I thought.

The next day, my husband says he had a job offer from his old company in Arizona. He had kept in touch with them and wanted to see if there was still interest. “I thought we agreed to drop this crazy talk? What are you doing!?!” I exclaimed. “We haven’t even decided anything so why discuss it with anyone else?” But he not only had an immediate offer to come back, he was offered a hefty increase in salary.

I had been so worried about what we would do if he ever lost his job here. It was so hard getting this one. This may be our one chance to fix everything. And how can we say no to that salary? We talked it over with the kids and I even gave my daughter the opportunity to have a major say, since it affected her so much too. She said to me: “I want to go back. I don’t want to wait until I’m older because I want to enjoy the short rest of my childhood there.”

And we took the offer. Are we crazy for moving yet again? Yes. Am I embarrassed that this is happening? So much so that when my husband asked when I was going to write about it, I said NEVER. I will just go and people will eventually figure it out. But this would have been quite the gap in my storytelling.

We could have stayed with our choice and hoped to make it all work. That would have probably been the saner choice. But as someone who has almost died twice, I feel like life is too short to stay with something you regret if you can change it. We tried and it didn’t work out. And unlike the move here, which my daughter fought tooth and nail, everyone is in agreement.

I realize this won’t make sense to most outside of our immediate family. But it doesn’t have to, because we have to live with our choices. No one else. Our life can look like (and can be) a hot mess sometimes. But we remain happy in the knowledge that we always have each other, no matter where we are. We are moving back to Arizona later this month and we are at peace with it. We will land on our feet as we always do. A lesson learned and we are grateful for the opportunity. See you on the other side!