It's time...

...to finally say it.

My roommate's dog, Sophie, is currently trapped in Leah's bedroom so she doesn't maul the two men who are packing my things into boxes. Oh, that's not what it's finally time to say.

I've never hired professional movers before, but I have had enough of packing and moving myself so I'm spoiling myself and not doing it this time. Nor is that what it's finally time to say.

The movers are packing everything and carrying the boxes downstairs one by one to load into their truck and carry off to Denton, TX.

That's right. Denton. Again. That's it--that's what it is finally time to say.

I have finally come to grips with the fact that Seattle seems to just not want me to stay. I have searched in vain for a job here for nearly 3 years, and have been able to only get positions that are temporary (or crazy, i.e. Art Institute). In only 2008 and only at the U of Washington, I applied for SIXTY-EIGHT jobs. That doesn't count the jobs applied for in 2006 or 2007, or at any other college...of which there were many.

However, it seems that, just as boys merely have to think about losing weight and it falls off, I merely have to think about moving back to Texas and UNT offers me a job on a silver platter.

Beginning next Monday, April 13th, I will be an advisor with UNT's College of Business Graduate Programs Office. What a mouthful. It's a great position, the senior advising position with great leadership opportunities and the added responsibility that I'm looking for at this point in my career.

April 13th is also the day Jesse and I would celebrate our one-year anniversary. I don't really knwo what else to say about that on the blog except that it is what it is. Sometimes you wish things could be different, could be better. But they just aren't. And you have to walk the next step on your own.

But hey, it's me. And if Peggy has learned how to do anything in her life, it's how to walk the next step on her own, by herself, alone. So she will do it again. (And please, do not try to assuage me here with some sentiment about how I'm not alone and I have close friends who are like family. That is another blog post, but essentially it's baloney. I am very grateful for my close friends but that's what they are. They are not family.)

Why has Peggy begun referring to herself in the 3rd person?

Revert: first person.

I am feeling bittersweet about moving again. I hope this one is for the long term, I really do. But I know that the future is uncertain and I've never been promised the security and stability that I seem to simultaneously long for and run away from.

Seattle hasn't helped with 3 straight days of sunny, 72 degree weather. Seriously. Never fear: the forecast is for Wednesday through Saturday to be nasty again so I will be able to leave without feeling that this is paradise.

I will miss the beauty of Seattle...it's gorgeous evergreens, the view of Mt. Rainier from my living room, the Cascade and Olympic Mountains on either side of the city, Green Lake. I will miss the quirky neighborhoods, including my own dear Fremont. I will miss Jesse's parents, who have welcomed me in for the past year. I will miss Ginger and Sophie, the two dogs who have become like my own.

But good things await. My friends in Denton and other Texas towns. My family in Brownwood and Kerrville. A job where I can thrive and find purpose. And health insurance...oh dear health insurance, I love thee. It's been too long.

It's no secret my faith has been all over the place for quite some time now. It still is, but I can't help feeling that someone is orchestrating this. To take me from a place where I have felt lost and insane and back to the place where I never felt better. Maybe sanity awaits me in Denton, too. Maybe even more...like joy and peace and hope.

That would be nice.