Our previous life

A few years ago, my husband and I were living what I now refer to as "our previous life." We were living what most would consider the American Dream, but we just weren't satisfied. We were working on Bachelor's Degrees in college while both working in the telecom industry. We were very surprised when we worked temporary assignments through a temp agency and both of us were offered full-time jobs without even a college degree. We thought we were so lucky to have "landed" these high paying jobs at such a young age.

I quit my job when I was pregnant with our first child, but my husband stayed on with his corporate job and we were saving money like mad, since he made more than we needed to live on. He continued doing well and climbing the corporate ladder. There was a point about four years into his job when he realized that he was not happy at all. He knew all the ins and outs of telecom, all the engineering gargon like CAT6, CAT5, T1, T2, and patch panels, but didn't feel like he was making a valuable contribution to society.

At that time, we were also living in a very large town and thought maybe it was the town that was getting us down. So we moved to a much smaller town, but he kept the same job. That helped a bit, and we realized that we did enjoy a small town much better, but the job was still a problem. All the corporate politics and threat of layoffs got to be too much and we decided to risk everything, quit the fancy job, and move halfway across the country to a small town we have adored since the first time we visited here.

We are struggling somewhat to make ends meet and our tax return is nothing short of embarrassing, but we are happy and that's what counts. I have a dream job, working in the historic Carnegie public library, and my husband is working on several online ventures. Our children are safe and we know most of the people in town after only living here about two years. Our new life is good.

What might have been...

I was just thinking the other day about how different our lives would be if just a few small details had been changed in the past couple of years. First, two years ago we had made several offers on houses in Rye, Colorado and Beulah, Colorado. We had been to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on vacation and loved it, but figured it was out of reach for us and too far from family. We actually made offers on four different houses, two in each town, respectively, and with each one something fell through and we didn't end up moving there.

In Rye, there was one log home built in the 1950's that was in very good condition and we were very excited about it mainly because the piece of land it was on was incredible. But we knew they were asking way too much, and when the inspection came back with lots of electrical and utility updates required, we just wouldn't have had enough money to do all that, plus pay a large mortgage. So we went opposite, and made an offer on a home priced really low right on Main Street. That one turned out to have asbestos siding, and several other problems that come with very old homes that have very little updating. If it were just my husband and I, we probably would have gone for it, but since we have small children, the risk of Mesothelioma cancer and who knows what else was just too much and we walked away from that one too.

In Beulah, we made offers on two different log homes. One was basically a shell that needed work in all aspects and the seller wouldn't budge on the price, and the other one had evidence of a fire in the attic with unremediated damage that we weren't comfortable with.

That's when we realized that we just weren't meant to be there. Something was keeping us from living there. So we decided to look at Eureka Springs again. One more vacation during the winter and we were hooked. Our next trip was a house-hunting trip. We found a suitable house for about half of what we would have paid in Colorado and have lived here fifteen months now with no regrets. Strange how forces beyond our control can sway us in different directions.