Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Should I stay when I go? Or come back?

Many of you may have noticed that I am NOT currently living in Wisconsin. Yes, Puese and I had planned on moving there after we visited last year. But then life happened and plans changed, and we're still in Southern California. Well, an interesting prospect has cropped up recently, and I'm now torn about what to do. In a month's time, I will be in Wisconsin for a friend's wedding. For financial and planning reasons, we've not purchased my flight home yet. The other day; Puese presented me with this option: What if I stayed? Of course I immediately started thinking in this direction. All the possibilities, all the pros and cons, have been whirring through my brain since then. And each option has it's pros and cons. There are however, many variables that would need to be made constant in order to choose, or would be made a constant by that choice.
If I were to stay out there, I would have to start looking for a place to live, and a job. I personally know that I wouldn't be able to afford or get into anyplace with a contract of any sort. (Thank you student loans for my terrible credit score!). With not having a place to stay for a visit yet, this is a detail that would cause me great stress. Also; I would only have with me what I take out there on the plane. Meaning I would need to bring ALL of the necessary necessities for getting a job and living day to day. I'd have to be extremely prepared to live a minimalistic lifestyle for an undisclosed amount of time. Even if I were to get a good job and find a place to live, I'd have no furniture or wares. Plus, I'd have no sewing machine, printer, large drawing pads, probably not my colored pencils. I'd take my laptop, of course. I know that drawing pads and things of that nature can all be purchased there, but if I'm expected to live a minimalistic lifestyle, that also would require me to spend as little money as possible. I'd really be challenging myself to continue on with my creative challenge.
There's also the concern of which state would I try to find a life in? I suppose that depends on where I can stay for the immediate time while I look for these other things. But I'd also need to work that out before we go. Basically that decision would boil down to where Puese want to live after we get married. Which brings me to the point of the decision making. If I were to stay, we'd have a set time for when we'd be living there by. We'd both be out there by September.
The other option of course if for me to come back. If we did that; nothing of our current plans would change. We'd be in SoCal until January of next year at the earliest, and our wedding would be treated like a destination wedding. This plan works. It brings in more money in the long run (depending on work I can find) and it's already in motion. But, and this is the kicker for me, it doesn't have a specific end date. And I really don't want to live here forever.
There are of course other small things that I could take into consideration as well (like my sewing machine). For instance; My hair. It's teal. I like it teal, I'd like to keep it teal, but that limits the sort of employment I'd be suitable for. (Because equal opportunity doesn't include strange hair colors). Or how I'd be able to get more onsite wedding planning done. There's also the fact that I won't see Puese for possibly 5 months, to consider. And that level of missing is crazy. I know we could handle it, but it's not something I like to think about. Either way, I leave in 22 days, so I must decide before then. I'd like to be able to decide sooner rather than later so that I have enough time to pack all of my things up in this house, and have them ready for whenever Puese is ready to move them to me.