TO BID ADIEU

My days of late are mostly filled with Zillow and Indeed searches. And more knitting. The desire to leave this area growing more intense as the time passes. I have been here too long. Longer than at any other time in my life.

I have grown up moving around often. Never staying in one place for long. Three years would have been considered an eternity. But now, having moved to the Austin/Cedar Park area twenty years ago, I know the time has finally come to pack up our belongings. To bid adieu to Texas. To start anew elsewhere.

It was never my idea to move from California to Austin back in the summer of 2005. Away from family and friends to a place where I knew nobody. To start a new life. A new family. And then to end up feeling more isolated and alone than ever before during the marriage to my children's father, and particularly afterwards when that marriage ended.

And so began another chapter in my life where I had to start over again. This time with additional challenges from the children's new family members and my returning to the work force after having been a stay-at-home mom for almost a decade. Living in a place like Austin is a challenge for a single mother. With one income, it becomes difficult to become approved for a decent apartment and impossible to own a home. Thus began the many moves from one apartment to another as I attempted to mitigate the cost of rent, which only ended up making matters worse as the moving fees kept adding up from one move to another.

This month, another chapter has ended with the loss of my longest ever job. There is now even less reason to stay here. And more reason to look elsewhere for a new beginning.