Assessing, Reassessing

I came home from work one day last week and asked JP, "what would it take for you to start your own company?" He looked at me blankly. "No, really, what would we need to do?"

And I was serious. I've always had this idea that a nice steady job at Big Company Corp. would be a risk free, if not always thrilling career path. You do your hours, you look to your family and after-work hobbies for your extra satisfaction in life, and you collect your paycheck that someone has processed for you. But then JP worked at Big Company Corp., and worked very hard for Big Company Corp., and received excellent reviews, bonuses, and commendations from Big Company Corp., and then out of nowhere he and several thousand other people got cut from Big Company Corp. And that could happen again any time. My co-worker's dad just got cut from his job of 30 years at age 58, what is he supposed to do now? Not so steady, dependable, or risk-free.

So, I asked JP, what would we need to do? Sell our house and live smaller? Consolidate our grad school loans and stretch them out for 20 years instead of the 10 we've been paying on? Trade in our cars for older ones with much lower payments? Have me go back to a firm for a few years? Because I would do any and all of that tomorrow if he had a plan.

And as happens so often in our marriage, once he finally got me on board, he's now preaching caution and moderation and "maybe I should get another job and learn more before I branch out on my own." Which yes, please do, but I'm done thinking that a company job is the risk and financially stress-free path I thought it was. When he's ready, I'll be ready. Er. I'll be ready-er.

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Mondays are bad days. The weekends are lovely, but then on Monday JP spends a day sitting at his desk staring at his computer searching and willing job postings to appear before him. Monday evening found me pacing the house in search of a cookie. I paused partway through rummaging the pantry to ask myself, "am I even hungry? What am I doing? I never eat dessert after dinner and I already know we don't have any cookies. What is this?" And I realized, I was sad. I was sad and it seemed that perhaps a cookie would make me feel better.

I've never been an emotional eater- in fact, emotional upheaval has always sent me in the other direction- angry tummy, can't eat, forcing food down because I'm getting dizzy. But I realized sadness has always been accompanied by something stressful and it's the stress that messes with my appetite, and once I projected our family's financial solvency out to 6+ months, stress took a backseat. My sadness has never been distilled to only itself. JP was just so down, it was the moment I feared since the minute he said his job had been cut. It's not a tragedy, there are worse situations, and it's not that he or we are like that all the time. But that moment- that shitty, I haven't found anything, what if I don't find anything? feeling of general down-ness, I don't know how to fix that. And maybe it's not my job to fix it, but it sucks. I hate seeing someone I love hurt. The cookie, had we even had one, would not have helped.

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We had our realtor come over on Sunday to walk through the house and pull comps to give us a potential list price. In my list of plans and contingency plans for the next 3 months of our life, moving is involved in all but one of them. JP has applied for jobs in Seattle, San Francisco, and Fort Worth. Seattle and San Francisco would obviously involve moves (moves to downtown rented condos, yay!), but Fort Worth might too. There's another downtown neighborhood I adore that didn't have any homes listed when we were looking. It feeds to a fabulous elementary school (better than ours actually) and is 2 miles closer to downtown. The homes are about 20 years older, about 1,000 square feet smaller, and $100,000 cheaper. I fell in love with a 3 bed, 1 bath, 1500 square foot (gorgeous) bungalow and would have put down an offer that day if I knew we'd stay in Fort Worth. Along with first section I wrote above, I'm in a downsizing mood. We don't need 2800 square feet, I don't think anyone does. It's nice- I love this house and our neighborhood, but if a smaller home will give us greater financial flexibility, or would give JP a business opportunity he wouldn't otherwise have, or allow us to pay down grad school debt to open up more career paths in the future, I'm all for doing it. What matters is the 4 of us are together; home is any walls we live within.

And who knows, maybe we'll stay in this house forever, but I no longer have a set plan for much of anything. And oddly enough, it's incredibly comforting to know the number of changes we could make, how fluid we could be, to adapt to whatever is needed. I fall asleep, tucked within JP's arms, thinking of the possibilities.