Giving In

It is not very often that I write here and I know exactly why. To write means that I have to open up and pour out that part of myself that I try and keep locked away. It's not that I don't want to share these feelings, it's that if I open up, it will all tumble out and I'll feel as if I am spinning out of control towards an inevitability that I am not prepared to accept.

We're moving back to Tennessee.

No matter how I look at it, no matter how I try and justify it to myself or anyone else, it feels like quitting. I realize that it's quitting for very legitimate reasons, but what shreds my soul is the thought that after everything, after all we've been through, this didn't work out. Could we have stuck it out, forced ourselves to live this way, and somehow made it work? Of course. Would that have been fair to the two innocent human beings that we are responsible for? Absolutely not.

We've known sacrifice since we were 17-years old. It came with the territory of having a baby when we were still children, and we've spent all this time struggling to do the right thing. We worked, we finished college, we raised one son, and then two, and just when getting to the point of being able to say, "We did it" the economy collapsed, we found out my husband had a tumor, and suddenly nothing made sense anymore. Surgery followed, along with my husband dropping out of grad school, and even though every instinct told us to turn around then, we waited another year to see if any of this was possible. It turns out that possible can have multiple meanings. It really came down to a choice. We could choose to put ourselves first, or we could choose to put our children first. Giving up means giving them a better life, a life where when we go to a store, they don't have to be afraid to ask for a box of cookies, or an extra notebook for class. It's not that I want to buy them iPhones and designer clothes, I just want to not walk into a store and have to say to them, "I'm sorry, but we can only get what is on this list" every single time I go to the store for two years. I just can't do it anymore. I'd give anything up, to not have to see that look on their faces.

So here we are, the two of us angry, sad, relieved, all at the same time. It's not easy when we're both mourning. One path obstructed, one of many, yet this is the one we couldn't overcome. After a lifetime of overcoming insurmountable odds, this is the one thing we couldn't do.

It hurts.

It hurts a lot more than I thought it would.

I am grateful to everyone who helped us along the way; our family, our friends, our eternally patient bosses who are really more family than employers.

My children are worth walking through fire for, so I'm going to be sad, but I'm also going to be happy, because they deserve the world. One day they will go through obstacles, and some they will overcome, and some they won't. But it's our choice to give them the best possible odds, even if that means giving up on our own. At least for now.