It's All Coming Together

When I first started looking at jobs in the U.S., the idea of moving back seemed overwhelming to me.   After all, my the company I am currently working for provides a tremendous amount of support when we are working overseas.  They are very, very good to us--they help with finding (and paying for!) schools, housing, and even spousal employment (well, admittedly that last bit is hit or miss--but it's something!).  For the jobs I was looking at in the U.S., however, we knew we would be totally on our own.  And although it seems obvious to anyone who has transferred jobs without the amazing support my company has provided to us in the last few years, that meant finding:  a) housing for ourselves; b) schools for the kids; c) a job for T; d) taking a pay cut (overseas jobs in my field typically pay way better, especially if you are willing to live somewhere that is a bit challenging); e) selling our car (which I LOVE), and f) moving our mountain of crap prized possessions back to the States.  I couldn't imagine how we'd accomplish all of that.

And yet, here we are.  We have rented a house back in the U.S..  The kids have been accepted into (the same! Spanish-English bilingual!) school.  T has been offered a job.  With T's job, the pay cut isn't nearly as terrifying as it was when I first thought about it.  We have accepted an offer on our car for about $4,000-$5,000 more than it's U.S. value (I will miss it, but the extra cash will fit in nicely for our plan to buy something that seats 7-8).  The movers are booked for two weeks from now.

The weird part is that I'm more stressed out now than I was when we were just starting to try to arrange everything.  T keeps looking at me like I have four heads, and can't understand why I am not more relaxed.  But I am not.  Now that we are so close, and have so little time to sort out any bumps in the road, I find that I am MORE stressed out, because I am so worried that some piece of things is going to fall apart.  Like, we meet with the owner of the house this week when we head back to sort out some things. . .what if the house is really a dump, or the lease falls apart for some reason?  What if Miss M doesn't pass her entrance exam at the school?  What if T's offer is withdrawn (his request for a higher salary is still pending, and I'm paranoid they are just going to say "this guy is too much trouble," even though some small part of my brain does recognize that negotiating salary is pretty ordinary)?  Was the car deal good enough?  Did we cave too soon?  Will I have the donations weeded out in time for the movers?  Will they break something?  Will they steal something (cherished pewter Christmas tree ornaments, of all things, went missing during our last move)?  And so on, and so on.

I know it is a little crazy.  Plus, although I have two of my three final big projects done at work, I still have one massive one to complete, and I'm worried about it.  I set the bar really high for myself on this one, and I'm not going to be able to deliver what I was hoping to deliver.  I think everyone will be fine with that (I'M the one who set the bar high, and I acknowledged from the beginning that I might not be able to deliver what I was hoping to deliver), but I'm still worried about that.

And we have this trip this week, which will be an action-packed race to set everything up for a month from now, when we move back.  We have crazy connections in both directions because we used frequent flier miles, and SB is going through a screaming phase, and. . .yeah, I'm not looking forward to this trip.

But it IS coming together.  Really it is.  I need to just breathe.