How did we get here?

My house isn’t luxurious but it’s cozy and quaint.  It sits in the heart of Corrales, New Mexico on ½ an acre and I have planted a couple of flower beds and finally covered the weedy front yard with grass. The dogs have room to romp and one side of the property that is unplanted and OK for them to dig in. The property abuts the irrigation canal that runs along next to the river.  In thirty seconds I can be on the ditch bank walking the dogs and in five minutes I can be sitting on the banks of the Rio Grande watching the water and ample wildlife.  


One afternoon last fall when I was in my garden making it beautiful while my dogs lounged around me in the sun enjoying that I was out in the garden, I suddenly thought, “How did I get talked into leaving?  I love my house and garden.  I love my dogs and I love being in the same neighborhood with my parents and brothers and sister.  My life is good here.” and I burst into tears.  Later Bob said, “But I thought you wanted to live abroad!”  “I do,” I said, “but I’m really struggling with leaving.  I’m worried that my kids still need their Mom even though they've moved out of town.  I want to spend time with my Mom and Dad while they are still young and active. I don't want to miss anything!"  So we struck a deal.  If Bob got in, I would go with him to where ever the State Department decided to send us as long as I could get home easily to visit my family and as long as we kept the house and dogs. 

In 2007 Bob had sold his business of 25 or so years and in the fall of 2008 he found himself foot loose and fancy free.  I had been working in Real Estate only a short while when the market went south and had "retired" from real estate several months earlier.  I was managing our rental properties and learning to paint.  Bob set out to find his next big adventure.  He was working on a couple of start up businesses, and applying for various jobs in the public sector.   In late 2008 Bob declared that he was going to take the test to get into the Foreign Service.  He explained to me that there were actually three tests and that only about 5% of those who embarked on the process got a job offer.  With so many lines in the pond, he would see where he got a bite first. Any one of the possibilities would be an adventure, some more appealing than others and the Foreign Service being at the top of his list.  I was a little amazed that he could have so many balls up in the air and not go nuts.  I was guessing that one of the business deals would go through first.  Bob is very bright, experienced and talented but with a 5% chance, I didn't think too much about the Foreign Service.  It's Bob's way to be very thoroughly prepared for anything he takes on.  He read and studied geography, diplomacy and world history like a graduate student.  I guess it wasn't a big surprise that he passed the first of three tests with flying colors, but still, his chances of making it through the whole process was remote.  I figured that one of the other endeavors would come to fruition before the whole Foreign Service thing did. 


 The next couple of months he did practice tests and studied and studied.  As the date of the second test approached I started to remember that when Bob got is sights set on something he would do what ever it took to succeed.  He took the second test and, no surprise he passed again.  OK.  This was starting to get serious.  But surely something else he was working on would get funded or become a real commitment before he had a chance to take the oral exam in the summer.  Over the next few months he studied and practiced.  He joined a forum on the Internet for people studying for the Foreign Service.  He went to study with a group up in Denver, he met with a study group when he was in DC, and he spoke to people on the phone and practiced the test with them, with me and with his parents.  None of the other business endeavors had panned out yet and, of course, he passed the oral exam.  That wasn't the last hurdle though.  He still had to go through security and medical clearance.  Bob may have set a time record for getting cleared for both and he was placed on the register, which is a list of people who are eligible to be offered a position in the Foreign Service.  We began the wait for the call to be offered a spot in an orientation class and the Foreign Service Institute.   Bob was on the Internet forum every day.  He was constantly assessing the timing, comparing his position on the list with others on the forum.  He wanted to be called for the October class but it would have been a minor miracle for it to happen that fast.  The next possibility was January but it looked like he was too far down on the list to make it into that class.  "Good!" I thought.  That would be very stressful trying to move right after Christmas.  I get stressed out with Christmas as it is.  He figured he'd get called for the March or April class at the soonest. 


One day in early October he saw on the forum that someone that was below him on the list had been invited to the January class.  He called the appropriate person at the Foreign Service to find out if perhaps he had been overlooked.  The answer was: "Didn't you get our e-mail?  We sent you an invitation on Friday." Bob covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, "I'm getting and invitation to the January class right now!"  I was standing in the kitchen with a lump in my throat and my eyes stinging as the tears gathered.  I don't think I was exactly sad but up to that minute it had just been an idea.  This started to make it a reality.  The movers would come to our house on the 28th of December and take all our stuff.  We would leave behind the life that was normal and move into a life that was unknown.  I would have to figure out what to do with my house, my dogs, how I would live so far from my family and friends, what I would do with myself where ever we were to go. 


This was Bob's show.  He would be doing some really interesting work.  We would go wherever the Foreign Service decided to send us and I would try to figure out what there was there for me to do.  I could get a job in the Embassy or Consulate but that would limit my ability to get home easily.  I could paint; I could write (not my forte); do volunteer work or as my friend Kim suggested, do a graceful nothing.  One possibility that keeps popping up is that I could teach English as a foreign language.  I heard a rumor that the Foreign Service would teach me how to teach English.  Now, that sounded like something I would really enjoy.  We also found out that, space allowing, I could enroll in the foreign language training classes that are available to the Foreign Service Officers.  That was enough to make the whole endeavor worthwhile for me.  So I set my sights on the schooling I could get out of the experience and buckled down to prepare for the move.  I made plans to have a wonderful young man named Peter come live at the house after we left and care for the dogs, the house and the gardens. We would keep one room in the house for ourselves so that we would have a bed to sleep in when we came home to visit.