What I Thought About: {Utah}

Six years ago if you would have asked me if I would ever live outside of Utah, I would have laughed in your face. Never. No way. I didn't have any desire to leave my safe bubble. I enjoy being surrounded by family. Mike's family and my own family are my best friends. I love the mountains. I love being surrounded by people of my own faith. I love being surrounded by what I know. The streets, the cities. I feel safe there. I feel safe because those are the things and places that I know. I just wanted to be 'normal'.

Mike was not the same way. He wanted adventure. He wanted to try new things, and see new places. When we were dating, he would talk of going to school far, far away. I never really took it seriously. That was the single Mike talking. I thought when we got married, he would sink into the 'settled down' life.

Even after we got married we argued about it. {Don't worry, this was healthy arguing.} I would cry. I didn't want to leave Utah. Why can't we just be 'normal'? We began to understand the being married thing a little bit more. It's about compromise. It's about sacrifices. We were both in school at that time, so moving was not an option. But then our Bachelors degrees drew to a close. We had to start making decisions.

Mike picked Law School. Which there are two of in Utah. He applied to 10 schools. Including those in Utah. And that darn kid got into all of them. Then we had to decide. Some were easy to cross of the list. Some, a little more difficult. We ended up with a top three. One of the Utah schools made the cut. However, after much thought and prayer, Mike and I came to the conclusion, that even though the Utah school made the most sense, it's not where we were supposed to be.

Hence, why we currently reside in Oklahoma.

There have been times of wonder. Why here? Why did the Lord want us here? I'm still not really sure I know the answer to that question. Sometimes we think things would have been easier in Utah.

Do you know how hard it is to find a job in a state when you currently don't reside in that state? Hard. Nearly impossible. Especially when the legal job market is crap as it is.

We want to live in Utah. We love Utah. We love our families. We love the mountains. We love the feeling of home. But for some reason, we continue to take the scenic route getting back there. A three year law degree has turned into a Summer in DC which has turned into additional education, once again outside of Utah {more news on that to come}.

I've heard it said before that if you leave, it's hard to go back. I never truly understood that until now. It doesn't mean it will be hard to go back because you won't want to {well for some it may}. It means that its difficult to find the opportunity to go back.

We continue to look for that opportunity. We continue to pray for that opportunity.

But those student loans come due, whether your working or not, so you have to go where the job is. Or for us, just go to more school. No professional students here. Just two people who think that in order to get somewhere in the world, you have to rise above the average.

You wanna know what prompted this post?

It may seem funny to some. Actually when Mike and I saw this ad, we laughed. But honestly, it's not so funny to me anymore. Because that's where we're trying to get back to.

So we'll continue to look. And continue to pray. The opportunity will come. Trust in the Lord's timing, right?