CHANCE WORTH TAKING

My son recently asked why I stopped writing on my blog. The only plausible reasons I had were the fact that my days have been consumed with applying to various job postings, preparing for video interviews, waiting for phone calls and refreshing emails multiple times a day to see if I would get that 'next step', and researching new places to live. Not an excuse, as I still could have found a way to make time for even a brief entry to remember this time in the future.

Since my layoff in August, I have applied to over 100 jobs in various parts of the States. From the East Coast to the West Coast. And a few places in between. Though I did manage to get some offers, not one was in the Austin area. The ones I did get, I had to turn down, as the timing was off. I simply was unable to make the almost 2000-mile move in the time needed to start the job.

Moving across the country would be quite different than the many local moves we have made over the years. Too many for our liking. For those local moves, mostly from one apartment to the other in the same complex, we would have a few overlapping weeks where we would load up the minivan and drive it to the next building. Then we would unload all the boxes and start over again. After all that was done, we would wait for the movers to come wrap and move the heavy furniture that we were unable to carry ourselves.

For the past move in May, I filled up boxes with the various contents of the kitchen cabinets, sometimes skipping the extra packaging, drove to the new apartment to unload the boxes, and returned to the old apartment with empty boxes to fill again. Quite inefficient, but we had to work within our school and work schedules. For a long-distance move, everything needs to be packaged properly for stacking in storage and eventually a moving van.

Long-distance moving companies are another source of frustration and research. Particularly when they try to scam you and harass you via text, phone, and email. After having spent over 30 minutes with each of two companies detailing the inventory of items to load into a moving van, and trying to explain that I simply do not have the $5,000 - $6,000 or more that they required, I decided that storage might be a better option. For now.

When faced with a difficult decision about the next step to take, we might find ourselves overthinking everything. We find all the ways that things could go wrong instead of finding solutions to how we can make things go right. Familiarity and comfort can lead us on a path to indecision, which then leads to inaction, and finally to settling for staying in the same situation we have been in for years.

In the end, we talk ourselves out of doing something that seems too difficult or impossible instead of just taking a chance to follow a different path. Someplace new. Someplace exciting. All the while, knowing that this newness and excitement will eventually fade into the familiar. But it will be a different sort of 'familiar' than we have previously experienced. A chance worth taking.