Remember how I wasn't going to expect anything unusual to happen when I sent out the tithe checks? How I was just going to do it because I ought to? I had to silence the Twilight Zone theme playing in my head when I realized that Plague State cut our unexpectedly large tax refund check on the day I mailed those tithe checks, and that it wung its way across the country to arrive here in our next mail delivery, on Monday. In Tuesday's mail came an envelope from a reputable company offering me a painless $100. Yesterday my husband came home with a job offer.
I am a little afraid to go outside because what's next? Does a grand piano fall from heaven in front of me?
The job offer is from the company two hours away. (Actually, it is probably more like two and a half, the T4 (the Tout for Truth in Travel Times) observes.) This leaves us with many questions.
Question 1: Accept or reject?
Will something turn up in the city? He got a call back from a metro area firm yesterday, which is encouraging. It's in the wrong part of the metro area, though, and would mean an unpleasant commute -- if it even turned into an offer, which is several steps from where we are. The recruiter he's been working with says she doesn't see much on the horizon, but does she say that because she wants to close the deal and get paid or because there's really not much on the horizon? Her objective is to make money for her employer, not to find the best fit for our family. I don't know how much weight to give what she says.
Question 2: Is it ethical to accept the offer and then bail?
Let me make it clear that I love my husband for his moral backbone. He is taking a harder line on this question than I might, though. He is reluctant to accept now and withdraw his acceptance if something local turns up before he starts work (which I don't have a problem with). He feels that he should not begin the job and keep looking for something in the city (which I feel is a little dicier but not outright wrong). This leads us to --
-- Question 3: Would we really move??
I have surprised myself with the way I've been thinking about this town. Let's call it Cow Town (as in "anyone lived in a pretty..."). We used to live in Pretty Sow Town, which is not far from Pretty Cow Town, and they are both medium-sized university towns with a nice combination of small-town feel and university amenities. Housing prices look jaw-droppingly low after life here in Pretty Now Town, where there is a benumbing procession of zeroes in every real estate ad. I have one friend and several acquaintances there, and my dear friend Kate visits her parents there regularly so I might see more of her. After my husband took the bus home last night I saw in the paper that a serial rapist was apprehended a few days ago on that selfsame bus. There's a lot less crime in PCT.
But. But but but. So many buts I don't even know where to start, actually. But no spur-of-the-moment jaunts to the museum of natural history. But no dim sum -- I love to watch my boys' excitement when the cart wheels by. But lots more car dependence; lots more sprawl and big box stores. The Sunday before Christmas my husband took the boys out to his parents and I hopped on the train to the art museum to see Christmas paintings. Can't do that from PCT.
And I'm pregnant, for Pete's sake. I'm in a delicate state here. Shouldn't I be reclining on the couch eating bonbons? Actually, I should be eating plain yogurt with wheat germ while doing elevator Kegels, but I'll hold on to the bonbon fantasy for a moment. Delicate hooey aside, though, this is not optimal timing. One of the ideas on the table last night was buying a house and moving before the baby comes. And then what if this job turns out to be awful? That makes me want to dive under the table and whimper.
Hold on, though -- it doesn't really make me want to dive under the table and whimper. It stimulates my keenly honed table-diving-and-whimpering reflexes, but I'm actually feeling fairly calm and withstanding the urge to hurl myself under the desk (were I not, there would be many more typos in this post). This week I finished Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, which was largely wonderful. She is hilarious -- there is a line in her forgiveness essay that makes me laugh every time I think of it (she writes about thinking thoughts that would make Jesus drink gin straight out of the cat dish) -- and there is an immediacy in her relationship with God that has been refreshing for me to see right now. She quotes her pastor in another essay, saying that God guides us in small steps. There's a little circle of light around us, and then the light moves and we know to shuffle a few steps in that direction, and then the light moves again and we go a few steps more. And, her pastor said, the funny thing is that this little Charlie Chaplin shuffle actually gets us where we're supposed to be.
I'm holding on to that thought right now. Holding on peacefully, even.
I am very sleepy today after a restless night, but it is a pleasant goofy kind of sleepy and not an oppressed cranky kind of sleepy. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm okay with that for now. There are lots of issues to sort out here -- both kid issues (Alex's first response when he heard about M's job was to ask, unhappily, "Does this mean we have to move again?") and adult issues (the very largest issues, in fact, in our usually happy marriage). But I don't have to untangle all of that at this moment.
To those of you who have prayed for us, thank you. Please don't stop -- the fun is just beginning. To those of you who commented last week that you shared my hesitation about tithing, I can only say that I was not expecting these events to follow my check-writing. (Note to skeptics: not asserting causal link; merely observing unexpected association.) If you decide to go ahead and give, watch out for grand pianos.
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