It was a year ago this week that I gave my notice at work. I was so upset about leaving that job because I really enjoyed what I was doing, before they changed my job description. I was working with at risk adults and also doing a little bit with foster care. I was told 7 months prior that I had no choice that my position was changing and I was going to have to be trained in child welfare. I've been a social worker since 1997 and there is reason I have never worked with children. It's just not my thing. Because I really liked my job, as well as my co-workers, I pushed through the training and got my certification to be a child welfare worker. Within weeks I knew I just didn't have it in me to do child welfare. I told with D and as the loving and supportive wife that she is, she said...Do what you need to do. So, I turned in my notice.
The last few weeks of work after you put in your resignation can be either really good, or can be really awkward. I wasn't treated poorly my last few weeks, but there was definitely some tension. My employer was pissed that after all that training I was now putting in my notice and I totally understand their frustration but I had told them I had childhood trauma that might interfere with my capacity as a child welfare worker and I was told numerous times....you have no choice. I was trying hard to keep my job, but there was no flexibility with my employer. They were pretty set on what they wanted and after I put in my notice, I realized I was not what they wanted.
The beginning of June was my last day and suddenly I was unemployed. I knew it could take months to find another job and we were both prepared to spend the summer hanging out enjoying the wonderful summer months at the top of the world.
It's no secret that I loved Long Island. My first trip to L.I. was in September 2011 and that is when I feel in love with this island hanging on the bottom of New York. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but everything was green and lush and I just loved it. In the beginning of our relationship D and I always talked about where we wanted to end up at because we both knew that at some point the altitude would be too much for one or both of us. Long Island was always at the top of that list because of D's family here but we always said it could never happen because it was way too expensive to live here. When you are looking for a house here, the first thing you look at is the taxes...not the price. The price may be right, but you may be paying 12,000+ a year for property taxes. Yeah, it's that expensive here. I always gave a huge shout out for Kansas City because the altitude was lower, my family was there and it is very reasonable to live there financially. I imagined us getting a house on Lake Lotawana (we had a cabin out there when I was a kid...before it exploded in popularity) and maybe both of us not having to work...I dreamed and I shared that dream with D and she always said no. One of her best sayings is....God told the Gays and the Jews to get to the sides!!! We even thought about Arizona for a while. It's really hot, but the humidity is low, the altitude was good and the cost of living is reasonable. But then we are in a city and state where we know only a handful of people and we are even further away from our families. Sorry Arizona...it's not going to happen.
So we always came back to Long Island. After I left my job we spent so many hours talking. Talking about the pros of Colorado and the pros of L.I and we did the same with the cons of both places. I kept that list and when we moved into our house here, I taped that list to the inside door of one of our kitchen cabinets. It's fun to look back on that now.
So, it was time for us to move down the mountain and rejoin society. The other crazy thing about Leadville is how small of a town it is. With a population of only 2,500 you get to know the people in town. I had become friends with the manager at the local convieanence store and a few years ago there was a wreck on the highway I normally drove home on and when the manager saw me the next time she expressed how concerned she was because she hadn't seen me that night and was hoping I wasn't in the accident. It had a great feel of the community taking care of each other. Whenever someone was sick or needed some extra help, the town always seemed to come together to help that person or family. So, we knew it was going to be a shock moving from a little tiny mountain town to right outside the center of the world. (NYC) The upside to moving to such a highly populated area is all the food options and that was on our list of pros for moving to NY...all the wonderful food options. In Leadville we were pretty limited to a handful of Mexican restaurants, a few coffee shops, a steak place that only sold steak and a Subway. And living in such a tourist area in the summer, many times the locals would go to these few restaurants and they are sold out of things because 2,000 more people are in town for the weekend.
It's so scary thinking about moving across the country. Our house in Leadville was (almost) perfect. The roof was not slanted enough for the snow to melt off, so several times a winter we would have to have our roof shoveled. Not shoveling the roof enough can cause water damage in your house...as we learned a few years back. It was one level, it had a jacuzzi tub and we had just put in a tankless water heater...which is awesome when you live int he tundra and need to take a really hot shower to warm up. If we could have picked up the house in Leadville and brought it here, we would have done that. So, deciding to leave Leadville was especially hard since we loved our home so much. And we loved the weather. We loved the snow we got and the nice cool temperatures and, well, I can't say it anymore than we fucking loved living in Leadville. I think both of us wished we could have stayed there longer but it just wasn't in the books for us.
We made the decision on a Saturday and by the next day we called the family to tell them that we were officially moving to Long Island. No one ever thought D would ever come back to L.I. so the news that we were moving was quite a shock to the family.
So we are moving. When you live at 10,200 feet you have about 12 weeks of "probably" no snow. We knew that if we wanted to move before the summer of 2017, we would have to do this move pretty quickly. Once the snow moves in, many companies will not come to Leadville and even moving before the snow came in, there were many major moving companies that said they would not drive to Leadville.
I was able to have about 10 days of not working and not having to do anything else when we decided to move. Suddenly my little break from work was over and I had to get ready to get the house ready to sell...and I knew there was so much to do. So much.
I'll end this post with some of my favorite pictures of our home in Leadville. The house is awesome because D put so much work into the inside and the landscaping around the house. Lucky me was able to move in and not have to do much.
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