I went to a job info session last night. As it turned out, the job is in Wisconsin. I had basically mentally written it off within the first five minutes, when the speaker introduced the company as being in Wisconsin.
But then, OH. BUT THEN. My friends. Then it got real.
The thing is, this job is perfect. Amazing. The actual work of the job seems fun and interesting and involves meeting lots of different people. Networking! Literally one of my best skills, without a doubt.
The benefits are insane, everyone gets their own office, and the campus (yes, there is a campus, not unlike Google, my other dream job) HAS A WORKING FARM AND A TREEHOUSE. A GIANT TREEHOUSE. Also a rock-climbing wall. And a cafeteria with fancy chefs. And a library. It's heated geothermally and within the next few years they plan to get 80-90% of their energy from renewable resources. They compost in the cafeteria. Did I mention everyone gets their own office?
Travel is 50-75% of the job, and I could request where to go. I could probably buy a farmhouse and live there. I could get a horse!
The thing is, it's still in Wisconsin. I would still have to relocate. I would still have to leave my best friend and my boyfriend and my apartment that I like so much. Not to mention New York as a whole. The food, the public transit, the diversity.
Then again, New York is expensive. Dirty. Messy. There's a serial killer in Long Island. Wisconsin has farmland, wide open spaces, the possibility to own a farmhouse and have work meetings in a treehouse.
The people thing is also tricky. If I worked it right, I could get to see my family in Utah and my friends in other places, like Rhode Island and New Hampshire and California, far more often than I do now. I wouldn't get to see my best friend or my boyfriend that much, though. I don't like that. But if I got a client in Rhode Island, I could maybe get to hang out with one of my closest friend's new baby. But then if I leave New York, I won't get to see my second family grow up.
WHY IS THIS SUCH A HARD DECISION THAT IS NOT YET A DECISION I HAVE TO MAKE???
This is what I do, all the time. I don't even know if I have an interview there and I'm already freaking out about the implicit life choices, as though I were moving tomorrow. There's no point in worrying, or, for that matter, in looking up apartments around Madison, until I know more about whether or not they're even interested in me, and yet. And yet. Here I am, freaking out.
Good thing I have therapy today.
