The Decision

So.We're going home.Now, before you say, "Wait, what about your job? What about school?! What about the CAMPER?!?!?", let's recap. It took me a while to find a job here. The job I wanted was not the job I got. The job I got was for way less money than the one I had in Huntsville (not enough to support us both by myself). The apartment we found was a literal hellhole. Derek's loans had issues, there are no more available/livable/affordable places to live, basically everything has gone completely and totally wrong since the first utterance of the words "I think I need to go back to school in Auburn." The reason it had to be Auburn was that they have a Software Engineering program. Derek was mighty intrigued by the Engineer bit, and thought it would look better to future employers (and everyone else). He also thought going back to school was the only option after having bad luck with jobs for a while, and he wanted to come back to Auburn because he thought it would be like old times. Some lessons are just hard to learn until you experience them first hand, and this was one of them. It was quite a few lessons rolled into one, actually. A big, long, expensive one.Be happy with what you have.Everyone starts somewhere, and it's usually at the bottom.There is always another option, even if you do not see it at first.Don't make decisions based on how you think things will look to other people.Never take your support system for granted.Don't try to force things that aren't supposed to happen.Life is a learning experience.We still haven't heard from Atlanta, but we know that is where we need to be. Now that Derek has decided Auburn is not the place for us, we are going to go home. It has been very, very costly these past few weeks, and frankly, we cant afford it anymore. Yes, I am making more every day, but we are also spending more, so its not actually doing much at all. We have exhausted all housing options, minus the ones where we leave the dogs at home with our parents. We have decided we do not ever want to live without our dogs if we have a choice. At least in Huntsville while we wait for the job, we wont have to pay rent and I wont have to drive 40 minutes twice a day to a different time zone, every day. If we have to stay (if he doesn't get the job) there is a university with a comparable degree if he should decide he does want to go to school (he doesn't) and there is a booming economy with a lot of jobs so we could both just start working. But we are going to Atlanta so none of that matters. I am super excited that we will be spending the holidays with our families now. It was seriously getting to me that we were only going to have a day and a half for Christmas. This whole month has not felt like Christmas at all to me. Its been sad and stressful, but I feel like this is a new beginning. I do feel bad about leaving the people at work. They have been nothing but kind and patient while waiting to see if we would be moving to Atlanta or staying. It'll be hard to tell them he hasn't gotten the job yet but we are still leaving. I know they will be okay though. Everything would be so much easier if there was a manual for life. Maybe I should write one. I would title it, "How NOT to Adult."Just another chapter in our newly-wed life....Love, Jess