So close.. Yet so far away.

In September 2005 Jeff and I made our first trip to New England. We always knew we wanted to visit but we never thought that we would want to stay. If we hadn’t just bought this house, we would have gone home, packed up our stuff and moved up there immediately. Instead we gave ourselves 5 years to get up there.

At first, we thought maybe we would wait for my company to move me, that way they would help us sell our house and pay for the relocation, that dream was squashed in July 2007 when DaimlerChrysler announced that Chrysler and MB were divorcing. I still had faith in our original plan, even though it also let us down just within the last few months.

Even though all our friends have asked the question “Why don’t we just move up there since we love it so much”? They just didn’t ask the question at the right time. We gave them all the same excuses, “Our neighborhood was still new and we wouldn’t be able to sell our house”, “We haven’t saved enough money yet” “I am waiting to get my degree so that I will be competitive in the job market” and my all time favorite “I have so much invested in this company, if I leave I loose it all”. Finally, someone asked the question at the right time, it was Syd and we were in the car on our way to drop him off at his hotel from my birthday dinner. We were talking about our jobs and we again expressed our want to move up to the Northeast. He asked the same question everyone else has asked over the last few years“Why haven’t you moved yet?” (This isn’t the first time he has asked this question either). On the way home, Jeff and I discussed it and I was able to discredit all my excuses. Have we tried to sell our home yet; what would it hurt to try? We were never going to save enough money living in this house. We love this house but we spend every single cent on this house (and traveling… and well… we didn’t want to give up traveling). As for my degree, my company suspended the tuition reimbursement a few months ago and if I wait for them to bring it back (if they even do) what will it really do for me? Why do I have to be so competitive in the job market if we don’t have any bills? Why am I so focused on making so much money? Just to buy more stuff? I want to make enough money to live life to the fullest and why am I in Corporate America anyway? I can find plenty of jobs without a degree that I will be happier at, I won’t make as much as I do now, but so what. And this brings me to my final excuse; I have come to learn that when it comes to Corporate American, Loyalty does not get you anywhere. So with all our excuses discredited, our next step was to get started on how to make our plan work.

Now we have 2 years left before our 5 year goal is up and we have decided to finally take action. We are selling our house and moving out to my land in Boyd (yes, you can gasp some more... I did say Boyd). We are spending the 1st year paying off EVERYTHING and we are spending the 2nd year saving all of our money and then we are moving to New England. I have to keep thinking (and praying) that the sacrifices we will make over the next 2 years will be rewarding in the end.