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All I Really Know...Really Sucks

I have begun to suspect that when I return home to Iowa in another three months...

Hey!  I'm about halfway done with this internship!  Whoohoo!

Anyway.

I will spend a lot of my welcome-back time fielding one of two questions:

1.  So.  What will you do now?

2.  What amazing stuff did you learn in Michigan?

And I anticipate my answers will be as follows:

1. I don't know.  Or, I'm still trying to figure that out!

2. I learned lots of little things, hard to describe unless I'm in a kitchen.

The fact of the matter is, I don't know what lies ahead for me.  I suspect that getting back into education is somewhere in my future...but that's a ways away.  I do know that I won't be making a career out of being a line cook, even though I have been gaining very valuable experience there.  However, I can't say I wouldn't work in a restaurant...because there's some very awesome restaurants out there I'd love to be a part of.

I also suspect that staying in my Population 11,000 ruralish hometown is unlikely.  And in fact, leaving the state altogether sometime in the future is possible as well.

Timing is everything.

My oldest son is 15 and will be a high-school sophomore (my god, when did this happen?).  He graduates in two years, followed by my daughter in another two years.  They don't want to be uprooted for their high school years, and I don't blame them.  By the time my daughter graduates, the youngest will be just getting ready for his high school years. THAT is probably the earliest possible time that we might move away from this town.

Unless...a great opportunity presents itself before then.  Then, I'd consider moving.

Then there is the leaving-friends-and-family thing.  Both sets of parents are within 45 minutes, and we have enjoyed grandparental involvement over the last (almost) decade.  And frankly, the parents aren't getting any younger, and at some point, medical issues will take center stage.  How we will take care of our parents if we live four states away?  Also, while our social lives certainly are not off the charts, we enjoy the company of two particularly wonderful families.  We have many things in common, and we are discovering new interests together.  It's very sad to think about giving that up and totally over somewhere new.

Yet, it is the somewhere new that is intriguing for me.  I have wanderlust, I admit it.  I want to go to and even live in so many different places; I'm not as attached to home as my husband is.  With the exception of the 18 years I lived here in this town when I was growing up, the nine years I've lived here with husband and kids is the longest stretch of time I've stayed put in one place.  And I've been feeling the pull as of late.

There's a lot to think about.  A lot to contemplate.  One would think someone who is almost forty years old would have this bullpucky figured out.

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