Other People's Kids

Uncertainty

When we moved outstate and began our "new life" "in the sticks", I was well aware that while I had landed a decent job (for the area, at least) it could cave in at any time for a variety of reasons. Tonight I sit and wonder what would happen if I suddenly didn't have that job.

How would this affect our fostering status? What would we do? Where would we go? "Josie" couldn't move with us...what about "Angel"? To my knowledge, there are only a couple of other potential employers for my technical skill set within a reasonable driving distance. That's not heartening for our chances of being able to stay in our current town if something happens...and it very well could, since our company is, after all, a fairly new startup.

Plan A would be to find another employer in or near town...a doubtful prospect. What would be a more solid plan B?

I went to school a couple hours up the road from here. It's a growing town in the next state on the border. It has some thriving industries. A couple of quick checks revealed that real estate prices are reasonable and jobs in my discipline can be had relatively easily for much more than I'm making in Hicksville. I have friends there...and both The Wife and I have history there, individually and together. It's also less than two hours from Mom & Dad.

Important point: real estate sells here, but usually not nearly as fast as in a larger city. It's very likely that it would take several months to sell the house. This city is close enough that I could get a job there, rent a room temporarily and fairly cheaply from one of our friends for during the week, and go home on weekends. It wouldn't be fun, but it would be doable.

I didn't stay in that town after college for two main reasons as I recall. First, there were a lot of painful, shameful and confusing memories there, and I needed to run from them. I'm over that now. The second was that I wanted to go to the Big City and Seek My Fortune. I'm over that now, too. It was a fantastic experience in many ways to go to the Big City...it helped me grow enormously professionally and as a person. I don't regret doing it (though I wish I had gotten out sooner) but I finally had to get back closer to where I came from, and I did.

One of the best things about this city is that it's also in the same PATH region as the jurisdiction where "Angel's" case is based. We could probably bring her there, especially if we announced an intention to adopt at some point.

That's most likely where we'd go if push came to shove. It's like an old shoe, and if a time comes when I must leave this town, it would be almost like a homecoming to arrive there.

Life is funny that way. I kicked the dust of that town off my heels for the last time (except visiting friends and courting future wives) in about November of 1991. I was very glad to be leaving, and I would have sworn that nothing would ever bring me back there to live permanently. Nearly 15 years later, contemplation of returning to that town and spending potentially decades living there brings nothing but a certain kind of peace.

Until now, I never really spent enough time thinking about what I would do if my idyllic-but-precarious situation suddenly blew up in my face. Now that I've spent a day thinking about it and a nervous half-hour updating my resume which hasn't been touched in a year, I have a contingency plan.

Feels good.

UPDATE: I would of course, under whatever circumstances, continue to foster and probably continue to edit this blog, though moving might interrupt it for awhile. I find this blog to be an invaluable outlet for the joy, frustration, rage, boredom and uncounted other emotions spurred by our fostering experience and by life in general. We may someday cease to foster...but today is not that day, and that day will not be determined by a simple change of scenery. There are kids in that town that are in trouble too. There are kids EVERYWHERE like that.

posted by Dan @ 8:25 PM