JUMPING TRAINS

Hi! Hello! How are you, old friend? Wherever you are in this wild world, I hope you’re well. I’ve missed being here, which is what I’ll say every time my real life starts running and I have to drop my online life in order to keep up, I know. I think my inconsistency with blogging officially nullifies me as a “blogger,” and welp, that’s okay. I may not be a blogger, but I am a documenter and sharer, and in that regard “better late than never.” 🙂

That said, I was on a really happy documenting/sharing roll back in the Spring. I didn’t intend for my sharing to stop, but like I said, life started running. First, our best friends here – the Gavins – they moved. They were our family, really, so when it was suddenly time for them to leave San Diego, we went all hands on deck to help. The Gavin kids came to play a lot; we went to their house to help them pack up. Life got busy. And sad. It hurt to watch them go.

All that while, Ryan was working crazy busy hours – hours he has never seen in his career before (which is saying something, because Big Law dishes out long hours). I tend to create and share more when he is busy because we both do our thing at night after the girls are down: he works, I work, we laugh and chat sitting next to each other on the couch. However, a stroke of luck wiped Ryan’s work plate clean in May, and we had the most unexpected break from work for nearly three weeks. He wasn’t getting assigned to deals, so we took off to Utah to see family. With the Gavins having just left us, and the pandemic still silencing our life here in San Diego, it was so nice to take the girls to a world where friends existed again, AKA their cousins! We pried ourselves away from Utah at the end of May and spent June and July here at home again, and it was good to be home. We started working on buying a house here during that time. I jumped into my friend scene here. All was well.

We went back to Utah during the first week of August for Ryan’s brother’s temple sealing. Our time in Utah was again, happy! Happy and, by the time it ended, unbelievably surprising in the biggest way. Ryan went to lunch with some attorneys while in Salt Lake, and he came out with a job offer.

In Utah.

Working in St. George, our hometown.

And?

We took it.

I catch my breath in writing that and my eyes well up with tears. This decision is days old, and I still can’t believe that it’s a decision we even had to make. Not to be negative – this jump has majorly positive elements (hello, living by our families!!!). But we weren’t actively looking for a new job; we were not expecting this. Albeit hard in ways, Ryan’s job in Big Law was good. Even more than that, our life here has been so good. I can’t believe we’re leaving San Diego. I can’t believe our life here is ending. Feeling like I’m standing in a whirlwind, it’s honestly hard for me to believe any of this is happening.

If a few key elements weren’t part of the equation with this new job and adventure, we wouldn’t be going. I came to San Diego with the deepest, most grateful sigh of relief to have finally landed in a place I really felt like I could call “home.” We knew during our third year of law school that we would be moving to San Diego, and every time I felt overwhelmed, alone, or sad during that last year, all I had to do was picture myself in SD and all was right in my world. The colors of the land, the rolling ocean waves. The laidback people, the bustle of the city. I loved this place deeply before we landed to root down, and every day since being here, I have fallen for it even more. Besides getting to know San Diego better, I got to know its people – my people! I thought these people were going to be my faraway family for life, so I really loved them. I learned from them, I admired them, I was loved by them.

To move on from the mini heartbreak that this move is for me, I’ve focused on the divine signatures or tender mercies that perpetuated this change. There have been so many, but for one, the firm that Ryan will now work for is based in Salt Lake City, but when they extended the offer to Ryan, they permitted him to work remotely from St. George without batting an eye. This was huge for us, because the market for Ryan’s work just doesn’t exist in St. George. We never thought we’d move home for that reason, not without changing professions, at least (or retiring. In 15 long years). Then, when Ryan consulted with his mentor at his San Diego firm, the thought came up to work for his San Diego firm in St. George — another mind-blowing prospect. We wrestled between the two situations for a bit there, not knowing what to do. Ryan’s firm life here has been strenuous at times, but the people there have treated him so well. It has been a fantastic job, one we have been so grateful for. Ultimately, we chose the Salt Lake firm because of the greater upward mobility for Ryan, but cutting that string – for whatever reason – sealed the moving deal for me and I just wept. There was no turning back then! We would be moving on.

I kept our secret for a day, fake-smiling at my friends and lying when they asked if I’d be at this or that next month. I just didn’t have it in me to face reality for a second there because our new reality was 1000% unexpected. When I finally started opening up to my closest friends – blubbering as I went – my sad heart was salved when my sweet friends started to cry, too. I knew I loved them! And I knew I was loved by them, too.

So! Tears aside, here we go. Off on another adventure, catching a truly blessed train going home that we didn’t think would pass us by for years to come. It’s a jump, it’s a change, but if we’ve learned anything in our young lives, it’s that the trains that make your heart burn are the ones to take. When your heart burns because things just “fall into place;” when things “shouldn’t make sense, but they are;” when things make you look up toward heaven and ask if someone up there is behind it all — those are the trains to take. Because someone up there is behind it all. If I believe anything about this situation it’s that, just like I believed it when we got the law firm job in San Diego during law school. God writes our stories better than we ever can. He is a master life curator. And even though I’ll never get over you, San Diego, I’m excited to see our St. George chapter, too.

I’d like to keep posting here in the next two weeks before we go! Crossing my fingers that I can (my sanity and happiness will thank me if I do 🙂 ).

Pics below via — our most recent SD moments. From Carlsbad to Del Mar, to La Jolla and back to our own tiny yard again, we love this town so much!!