Here's the Deal
I will tell the DD/DUI story soon. It's a pretty good one, even if it was a TOTAL buzzkill and SHOT TO HELL my opportunity to make out with CK, a boy I crushed on in high school. Goddamn is he still fine.The delay is all this thinking I've been doing since I've been back. Home. Here. Because I've been thinking of moving back. Home. There.
Do you have any idea how good it would feel to have friends around? Locally? Good friends. Friends who love me and make me feel loved and who get me. Not many people get me. Well, I suppose you do know how it would feel, because 99.3% of you have that.
I don't. I haven't for a while. I crave that.
But would it be as good if I lived there as it is when I visit?
And how much career suicide am I prepared to take? Because, let's not forget, it's NoDak out there. And while the town is getting a BestBuy, a Kohls, and PetCo, and while they do have a large Barnes & Noble, a TJ Maxx, and a TGIFridays...they are just. now. getting a BestBuy.
Not to mention, it's fucking cold there for, like, 9 months out of the year.
But, I could buy a house. A nice house. My gf bought her house - at 2208sq feet, with a 2car garage and a hot tub - for $154,000. And her taxes are $1100 a year. ELEVEN HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS A YEAR.
I'd miss my family, but let's face it - we'd visit. And do I stay in an unhappy place, literally, because of family I see once a month?
My sister called me tonight to tell me that she'd support me 100% in whatever decision I make. And while she'd miss me if I moved, I need to do what's right and best for me, and she knows I love the girls and how happy I am when I get to see them. And my friend at work told me yesterday that I seemed happy. Peaceful.
But I have a career here. I'd have to take, like, a $15,000 paycut to move there. Of course, I could still live in the lifestyle I've become accustomed to there, with the paycut.
But I kind of see it as...stupid. That's the most descriptive word, right? I see it as a step backwards. There, that's better. Who the hell leaves a good ass job - a CAREER - to move to NoDak? Sure, it's a good place to raise a family, but I don't have one to raise.
And I see all these people from high school who still live there, or who moved back, and part of me pities them. Part of me thinks, "Damn, why the hell didn't you get out? Don't you know how much is out there to see?" And then I realize that out of the 20-30ish people I talked to at the reunion, THREE of them are single without kids - and I'm one of them. Everyone else - and that's not an exaggeration - is either married or with kids, or married with kids. While I want to be married, I also want people in my life who have goals and ambitions and drive.
Which isn't to imply that you can't or don't have that once you have that marriage license or pop a kid out of your coochie, but...it's not the same.
So, I'm stuck. Limbo. Purgatory. I talked at length to a gf about it this weekend. How long do I keep trying to make it work for me here? And am I trying hard enough? Sometimes I feel I am; sometimes I feel I'm not. The fact is, it's been 5 years here and I still don't have a gf I can call to grab a bite or a movie with. No one has a spare set of keys to my place. I don't rely on people because outside of family, there's no one here to rely on. The numbers in my cell phone all have area codes of 701 or 262 or 804.
So, that's my story. Real, actual reunion stories will follow at an undisclosed, somewhat-future time.
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