Those of you in Eastern PA and Western NJ know the subtle
elegance of the Wawa market. You may not appreciate it, but trust me it’s
there. Fresh sandwiches, tolerable
coffee, smokes, maybe gas, Tastycakes and enough bottled beverages to keep your
balder stretched for miles. It’s a one
stop shop that fits nicely into the blue color world around Philadelphia that which
spawned the chain. For many it’s the
first stop on their morning commute, it was my last stop in Pennsylvania.
It is never easy to leave something known, for the unknown.
Those of you who have made leaps within the corporate world know this. In the spring of 2012 I determined that the
nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach was born out of a general stress. Stress induced by paranoia within the
corporate world of my employer, and by the daily grind of life. So, after a few attempts to quell the
paranoia, I determined to test the job market.
It’s one thing to determine to test the market, it’s another to write
the resume, align references, and prepare the necessary firewalls for job
hunting in a socially tight field connected by smartphones, without altering
your current employer. It took me the
better part of 2 months to gather the gumption, and the time to complete the
preparations.
Once the resume hit the water, things moved quickly and in
no time my wife and I were faced with the very real prospects of moving our
family somewhere other than the Northeast.
We were raised in the NE, and returned there to raise our sons, and we
had called it home for the previous 9 years.
It is impossible to underplay the
effect experience has on your life, and with that in mind, it has always been a
priority to provide the kids with a rich diversity of experiences. The decision of where to go focused on those
experiences.
After you have made
the decision to move, the mechanics of where and how are remarkably similar,
but he stress of making the right choice is imposing. We moved from Northern VA so the kids would
know their family and so my wife could stay at home to be Mom. Now that the
kids were in school, and knew family, it seemed right to me to show them a new
part of the world, before dating and school became a burden. Essentially, why
move unless it’s for something exotic? So I was exploring positions that
included international relocation or downtown urban centers, nationwide.
One day in the midst of a particularly hectic whirlwind, the
phone rang and an opportunity for work in Albuquerque presented itself. When we
discussed it, I found that my wife wasn’t completely against the idea. We didn’t know anything about Albuquerque,
except that it was different and far away and certainly when compared to the
New York-Philadelphia Metro area, was exotic.
As the process became more real and we visited for the interview, my wife
famously said “Well, I don’t hate it”, when asked about her thoughts on the
city. It was all I needed to hear.
By January of 2013, we knew we were on our way to
Albuquerque. We knew our families and
friends would miss us, we knew it would be different, and we worried about all
of those parental things that keep you awake.
How we got here, and what we found, is fodder for a few more blog
entries….It’s been 7 months so I have to work back into this, bear with me.
Albuquerque doesn't have Wawas, doesn't have Tastycakes or
good pizza, but it does have green chili; and if you have eaten that, you know
that’s more than enough.
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