Decisions, decisions

Well, really one big decision: to extend or not to extend. 

When we accepted this gig, I was very aware that there was the possibility to extend my work and our stay here in Australia.  What I didn’t know is that despite the impression I had that it was a six-month possibility, it was in fact the possibility to extend for a year.  I learned of this when I started to put out feelers back in late November last year.

So armed with the knowledge that we could possibly live here for another year, Ruthie and I continued to march along in our life away from life. 

Then Christmas break came up, with a full week and a half away from work.  If you had asked me the week before the break if I was going to seek the extension, I would’ve said Yes with barely a hesitation.  But if you asked me a week after, I would’ve said No with a slight hesitation.

I think it’s safe to say that Ruthie and I put a lot of thinking into the decision of “to stay or to go.”  We certainly had several conversations about it, discussing the pros and cons of both staying and going, as well as why I would’ve had such a severe change of heart in only a couple weeks’ time.

Honestly, I think it might be the toughest [and biggest?] decision we’ve made as a couple.  And I’m pretty sure it’s the toughest I’ve made in a very long time.

Ultimately we decided to stay here.

Lots of factors went into the decision.  Not all of which I will enumerate here, but I will take the time to discuss a few. 

The first and foremost thing we discussed was missing our US families and friends.  A lot will have happened by the end of the original one year term we were given; even more will happen in the second year.  Sure, technology [Skype] helps, but it’s not the same.  Two years is a long time to go without seeing some critical people in our little worlds, and there’s no guarantee that all of those critical people will be able to make the trip down under [and we definitely cannot afford a trip back home]. 

We also discussed work.  My job here in Oz versus what my job might be when I return home, as I have some thoughts about what might happen if I spend another year doing what I’m doing down under.  Ruthie’s at-the-time lack of job here and her honest evaluation of job prospects when we return, as she has some opinions and desires for how things might happen in the future.

Then we discussed our cost of living and the things we want to do while being here.  This was a natural progression after talking about Ruthie’s increased chances of finding a job, and the fact that an additional year provides more time to see more things. 

What it came down to was the fact that it was a hard decision to say “No, we are not going to go home and catch up with everyone we miss for another year.”  Instead, the notion that when looking at the big picture of life we can say “We will not regret an additional year in Oz [as opposed to regretting turning it down]” was what won out. 

UPDATE: I originally penned this entry in late January / early February, when the first word came back from the US that we’d been approved for the extension.  But then I found out that it the ESEP budget wasn’t fully approved, so there was still a chance that the decision would be made for us and we’d have to come home in 2012.  At that time, I originally concluded the entry with the following paragraph:

“And now that we’ve made the decision, neither one of us are super comfortable about it.  We’re still very torn.  But we know that despite what we might miss at home, we will definitely make the best of our finite time on the opposite side of the world.”

We’re still a bit torn about our decision, but now, it’s just ever so slightly different.  I think that Ruthie and I, just as much as our families, needed the extra time to warm up to our decision.  When the official memo came out from the US something like two weeks ago, Ruthie and I took the following weekend to sit down, create ourselves a budget, and force ourselves to make a decision.  [Since we’d learned that it was still ever so slightly up in the air, we’d come to the attitude of “we’re still not sure if we’re staying”.] 

Perhaps it was because the weekend we did all of this also happened to be a really good weekend for us [good weather, good friends], but the day after we’d made the decision, we agreed that we felt better.  It was a bit of a weight off our chest to have made the decision and be sticking to it.  And then when it came time to tell our families again, it was much easier, and the news went over much smoother. 

So now we’ve got an approximate return date of June/July 2013 and that’s it.

-EP