- October 31st, 2001- the day Erik and I started dating.
- June 26, 2004- the day Erik and I got married.
- March 16, 2006- the day we brought Guinness home :o) -- I had to throw that one in there to tease Erik because we know how special he is to Erik.
- June 20, 2007- the day we became parents and welcomed Cairo Raine to the world.
- May 29, 2009- the day Jonah Skye come into the world and completed out family.
It's time to add one more day to the list- June 19, 2012.
It all started seven years ago. I had just finished Grad School and had my teaching credential. Erik and I were a year into our marriage and living in Santa Cruz. Our plan was to move back home to Humboldt... and in fact, we even moved back up there and took temporary refuge in Erik's parent's back room. Teaching jobs were far and few between and when they did open the competition was fierce. My plan was to sub for a while and get to know people. Then, a job opened up down in Monrovia (in the school district I grew up in), I interviewed for it, and I got it. A real job. A first REAL job with health benefits, retirement, a REAL paycheck. It was too hard to pass up, so away we went.
Moving in with my parents was supposed to be temporary. You know, a month or two until we got on our feet and had a chance to look around. Then, we accidentally bought a house. In fact we bought the house before I even set a foot in it. Darn internet postings. Erik checked it our before we closed on the house. I can't believe they actually sold it to us. The only problem with the house was that it was up in Bayside, Humboldt County and we were in Monrovia. Why buy a house 12 hours away? Well, we wanted to get back. We've heard so many stories from people about people getting stuck and comfortable in a place they didn't really want to live. Our hearts were up North and this was our way to make sure we could get there.
So, now that we had a mortgage payment a good paying, steady job was important. Over the next seven years I looked for jobs (sometimes daily) up North. The jobs were very scarce. I went on a few interview and always ended up the second choice. We had Cairo and Jonah... and for a long seven years my parents were amazingly generous to us and let us stay with them during the school year. Every summer, winter, Thanksgiving, and Spring break we headed north to be in our home. It was a hard seven years, knowing where we wanted to be, investing so much into a house we could live in about 3 months of the year, and NOT knowing when we would actually get up there. We made ourselves a promise, though. Cairo would start Kindergarten up there.
It also became hard because I LOVED my job. I loved the people I worked with. I loved my students. I loved my classroom. I loved the programs I started and invested so much time and sweat into. I also love my family. My mom and dad, who helped me raise both my kids from day one, my sister and her little Xander-mander, that scarcely seen little brother of mine- all in the LA area and I would be moving SO far away. The kids life would be turned upside down. No more daily sightings of Grammie and Bapa, no more afternoons with X and Ta-ta, no more late night visits from Uncle Danny.
So on the eve of Cairo's Kindergarten year, we had some big decisions to make. This is the decision we felt we had to make. Erik was going to move north with both kids and I was going to continue teaching in Monrovia until one of us could get a job, any job, that would provide health benefits for the family and make enough to pay a majority of our bills. Erik was going to try and get his foot into something and I was going to continue to apply for an job I could. It was easy to say, "you and the kids move up north and I'll visit you every chance I can." The truth was that it was a heartbreaking thought. I wouldn't get to be there on Cairo's first day of kindergarten, I would miss all the stories and all the moments for a year in the life of my kids. I would miss reading to them and tucking them in each night. We were going to have to break up the team. Erik was going to be a single parent and I would have a FaceTime relationship with my kids. That is unless I could finally get a job up north.
In May, two science teaching jobs became available. I applied for both and was granted interviews for both. The first was for a middle school about a half a mile from my best friend's house. It was for 8th grade science. Can you say perfect? I have always interviewed well and I put a lot of time preparing for it. I came into it with a portfolio to share and seven years of experience and all the tools, ideas, and strategies that come with it. I went into the interview confident, I came out of it not so confident. I left out so many things I wanted to tell them and I didn't feel that I really represented everything I could do. The only comforting thought was that I had another interview- it was at a school a little farther away and at the high school level. A decent job, but not the perfect one I was looking for. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed the next few days, thinking there was no way I got the job. But, I had things to do. Cairo's birthday was coming up and Erik and I were working hard on redoing her room.
June 19, 2012: As were were trying to finish the final touches on her room the day before her birthday, we got a knock on the door. It was the Fed Ex delivery man. With him we had Erik's brand new, flat screen television that he had scrimped and saved for, for a year. Now, despite the happiness this brought Erik, this is NOT way the day has become important. It did brighten my gloomy day, or should I say dayS. As we were opening the box to set it up we got a phone call. I answered it and was offered the job at the middle school! Score! It was shocking and unbelievable. The first thought that went through my brain was, "I'm not going to have to leave my babies!" That thought was quickly followed by the thought that we had finally made it. Seven long years. Bouts of lost hope, disappointment, frustration, longing- all coming to an end. At last, we get to settle down for good.
It seemed that on this day all the pieces of our life that weren't fitting together finally all fell into place. On June 19th, here we were, permanently living in the home we plan to raise our kids in, I have a job that will mostly support us, provide health benefits, and a retirement package. Cairo was getting ready to start Kindergarten at an amazing school and Jonah was all signed up to start Preschool and an equally amazing school. Somehow, my school loan was unexpectedly finished being paid off. Each day we were becoming more and more thrilled with the new car we bought the month before even though we were trying to hold out for a while longer. Our best friends were now minutes away, instead of 12 hours, and though we will be missing out on seeing my family daily, we now get to see Erik's family.
So, June 19th is a pretty awesome day in my book. It reminds me that dedication and hard work pay off in the end. The road to reaching a goal may not always be easy, it can be bumpy, hard, frustrating, and humbling; but, keep your eye on the goal and don't give up because some day you will reach it!
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