Decision time

I've found myself at a crossroads career-wise. At the moment, I am on maternity leave from my job. I had been planning on quitting, staying at home with my boys and concentrating on finishing my degree. My current job requires me to move every three or four years, although I have managed to stretch out my time in my current location to six years due to some strategic (although not altogether deliberate) timing of pregnancies. I know that if I go back to work, that I will have to move at the end of this year.

We've become quite settled here; we bought a house just over four years ago, Thunder Maker found a job that he liked until recently (when his employer was taken over by a larger organisation), we have a school in mind for the boys and we have made some really good friends. We really like the lifestyle and the pace of life here.

I got a call from the person who decides where my next move is going to be yesterday morning. He was touching base to see how my maternity leave was going and to let me know where he is going to send me next. I explained to him that I was starting to fill in the myriad of paperwork that needs to be done in order to resign. When he told me that he was planning on sending me to the location that I have been trying to get to for years, I immediately felt conflicted. I said I'd discuss it with Thunder Maker and let him know my decision.

From a purely logical standpoint, it makes more sense to go than to stay. When I'm working full time, I earn more than Thunder Maker. By the time we have to move, Wombat will be about 14 months old, so he won't need me around during the day for breastfeeds. As it is, he is wanting to eat food more and more and feed from me less during the day. We may be able to work things in such a way that Thunder Maker either works from home, works part time or doesn't work at all and does the stay at home Dad thing for a while.

The location that I would be sent to is less than an hour away from my Dad, his wife, my sisters and my Grandma. It's about 2 1/2 hours away from Thunder Maker's Mum, which is a plus. She has been quite unwell with an autoimmune disease that affects the lungs and kidneys this year. Things were very touch and go at one stage, but she managed to pull through. In saying that, Thunder Maker would love to be able to spend more time with her which is just not a possibility at the moment with our current location.

We would only be a couple of hours closer to my Mum, although further north as opposed to south, like we are currently. In saying that, most of her extended family is in the area we would be moving to and she already goes up that way several times a year, so we would end up seeing more of her anyway.

I wasn't sure if Thunder Maker would go for the idea of moving as he has always been quite vocal about wanting to stay here. In saying that, things are not going well in his current job and he hasn't had any luck finding anything else. When I mentioned it to him, he was a lot more open to the idea than I thought he would be. His main concern is that his band are just starting to get to the point of performing for money and getting some material out there and he doesn't really want to leave the band.

Thunder Maker is highly uncertain as to whether he is even going to have a job in another couple of weeks. He sent the big boss a letter the other day to tell her that him spending 15% of his income in travel to get to and from work is not viable. This has happened as the result of the big boss changing his work location from the office in our town to one that's nearly an hour away at less than 24 hours notice. And that is far from the worst thing that has happened since the takeover.

So, now I'm in a position where it seems like my mind may have been made up for me by circumstance. Still, it's a big decision to make.