My awesome Valentine's day gift from Jeremy arrived via FedEx this afternoon. Here's a pic:
Those are our birthstones, and it's custom engraved with our names. Silver (I'm allergic to gold), and my birthstone actually changes colors from smoky gray to greenish to purple, depending on the angle and lighting. Kinda like me. Huh. Anyway, it's the perfect size and I totally love it. It was a nice thing and went a bit toward brightening up my day.
Still haven't heard back from the casino. I don't know if Rob's still interviewing people or not. I've got a game plan in my head if I don't get that job - I want the hell out of Emmet County. I don't know where to move to, for sure - I'd need to actually get Jeremy to sit and discuss it with me instead of him just going "oh, you'll get the job." Nothing's guaranteed in this life except the fact that it will end, and I'm just one of those people who want to have multiple options fully mapped out. It's an insecurity thing.
Here's the deal. Sage is my dream job. I love working there, but I can never seem to stay on long enough as seasonal to qualify for unemployment. If I get the position I applied for, fantastic. Believe me, I'll be stoked. I'll just need to start looking around for a bigger house in this area.
If I don't get it...there's really not much holding me to this county. There's a shortage of options job-wise in my career field. And I seriously suck at retail. I've tried it. Multiple times.
I have a few friends in Traverse City. Liberal area, good sized town, lots of restaurants I could cook out. Housing costs about the same. Ni and Lopp and Mat and Bee live down there, and it would be nice to have the group back together again. I miss those days. But then again, it wouldn't be the same. We've all grown up so much and come so far, and I think that little sliver of idealism in me would be disappointed that we weren't hanging out every day like we did back in '06.
Flint's another option. Well, Genesee County, rather. Flint area but not within city limits. Jeremy's got so much family down there, and Sherry would be able to see the boys so much easier if we were closer. There's a boatload of different restaurant options - the French Laundry in Fenton springs to mind - and housing is so much cheaper, while wages for someone with my experience remain about the same. Plus, since Jeremy's now a work-from-home dad, we won't have to worry about the childcare. The area's definitely more culturally diverse - that's the understatement of the year.
I've got a lot of great memories of P-town and Emmet County. But I've also got a lot of shitty ones. At times I feel like this place has chewed me up, spit me out, rinse and repeat. I guess it used to be a great place to raise kids, back in the day, but things have changed. Minor in possession charges are so freaking common because, the sad truth is that if you're awkward, not sports material, and your parents aren't rich...THERE'S NOTHING FOR YOU TO DO AS A TEEN. We used to sneak into the alley behind the old theater (now gone) to smoke and make out and drink. We'd hide in bushes down at the waterfront and drink wine coolers or beers that had been smuggled out of our parents' kitchens. Little one-shot bottles that we'd gotten someone older to buy for us from the Four Corner's Market on Mitchell and Division (also gone, now Plath's Smoked Meats). We'd run around and do stupid shit like this because there isn't anything like a rec center or a decent skate park (at least not when I was in high school, and I should have been class of 2000). In the summer, you can swim, tan, go to the beach, but in the winter? Takes money for skis or snowboards. Ice skating's fun, until your ankles give out on you, and in Northern Michigan, there's a period of time where it's cold as hell, and rainy, before the winter sports start up.
I don't want that for my kids. If I'm working at Sage, I'll have money to enroll them in soccer, their dad can do Boy Scouts with them if he decides that's what he wants to do. But if not....
I'm used to struggling. I've had to fight to get to where I am now, and I expect to be fighting for a while. That's life. Some people get everything handed to them, some people struggle. Due in part to my personality, the way I look (not the way I was born looking, I mean the short hair and the nose ring, etc - the way I'm comfortable looking), the career path I've taken, and other multiple choices along my path that have led me to where and who and what I am now, I'm one of those that has had to struggle. Experience shapes outlook, and while I certainly haven't had the roughest life, I've struggled more than enough to get to where I am today - which is good, but not where I want to stop.
I want to keep blogging, about food, food I create and food I make under the tutelage of a chef - a good chef, one who has passion and creativity and fire, all the things that I have to offer, and one who can recognize that in me. Chef Rob certainly meets all those things, but whether I'm to end up at Sage is as yet unknown.
I don't want my kids to have to struggle. I don't want them staying on Medicaid because that's the only option and the only way I can get them to the doctor and dentist. I certainly don't want to hand them everything on a silver platter, I want them to know that anything worth having is worth working for, but I want them to know the taste of good grass fed beef, free range chicken, the kinds of food I can't afford to buy. I don't want them to be mocked for wearing hand me downs. I'm not going to drop crazy money on brand name clothes they'll outgrow in a minute, but I want them to have a few brand name things. Does that make sense? I'm not going to outfit them in Calvin Klein, but I wouldn't mind getting them Converse All-Stars. As an example.
There's a lot of fear here too. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I'm scared that if I stay in Northern MI, and I don't get on at Sage, I'm going to end up flipping burgers somewhere for minimum wage, we'll be stuck in a permanent rut of debt and falling behind and going back on food stamps and only catching up bills at tax time only to fall behind again a month later, the phone getting shut off, the gas getting shut off, help from DHS....it's soul killing. When you have pride, and you have to go to DHS to get money to get your electricity turned back on, it kills you a little on the inside.
If I don't get on at Sage, I think a town with more job options and lower housing costs would not only help us stay out of debt, help me give these two boys everything and every damn opportunity I want to give them, but ironically, would also let me take them to see my parents more often. More money = safer vehicle and more gas money for more trips.
That's the rational reason. The irrational one? I hear Scotty telling me "have an adventure. Every day."
So there's a lot to think about, and I'm working my way through it. It hinges so much on the casino right now. If I don't get on, and if Jeremy's amenable to moving, the next step will be picking up some job to pay the bills and slaving away at it whether I hate it or not, and socking away money to help fund a move.
If he doesn't want to move...I don't know. I really don't.
Because without that job, I can't see much point in sticking around in a town that doesn't want me.
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