As I drove south down the interstate from Seattle, towering evergreens lining the way on either side, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made the right choice.
I was on my way to join my new fiancé in San Antonio. We met at a concert in Seattle about a year before, and fell instantly in love. We danced most of the night, talked long after the lights went up, and planned our first date for the next afternoon.
After almost a year of a long-distance romance, he proposed. I was over the moon and couldn’t wait for us to be together.
There was only one problem: He still had a year to go before earning his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and I was one year into my dream job in the marketing department at Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Before starting my life in Texas, I made a few career moves and backup plans
I loved my job and my coworkers, but I was 31, and my biological clock was banging like a jackhammer. I’d always wanted a family, and didn’t think I could stand another year away from the love of my life.
I also knew I was taking a risk giving up everything for someone I’d known for less than a year, and my friends were giving me the side eye over it.
So before I called the moving company, I started my own boutique communications firm, landed my first big client in San Antonio, and told myself that if it didn’t work out, I could always sell my engagement ring and move back to Seattle alone.
As I crossed the state line into Oregon with my cat Queenie next to me in her carrier and everything I owned crammed into my tiny Honda Civic, I felt anxious, eager, and excited to start my new life in Texas.
I couldn’t believe my luck in already landing a juicy project with my first big client — one of San Antonio’s leading public-relations firms — and looked forward to meeting my new teammates in person.
I also saw the move as an opportunity to connect with my roots since my dad’s family was from the Texas Panhandle, and he lived there as a child. I looked forward to learning more about his home state.
When I arrived in San Antonio three days later, my fiancé was waiting for me in our new apartment. He’d just picked up the keys earlier that day, and there wasn’t a single piece of furniture in the entire place, so we slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. I was so happy, it might as well have been the Four Seasons.
I immediately jumped into my work, began networking, and started making friends. By July, I was pregnant with our first child, and nine months later, our daughter was born.
Our baby girl was only a few weeks old when we learned that my new husband’s company, where he worked while finishing school, planned to shut down their local plant, and he would be laid off within six months.
The news was unsettling, but it coincided with my desire to be closer to my family on the West Coast now that I was a new mom.
I also never felt totally at home in Texas. I missed the culture, natural beauty, and familiarity of the West Coast and couldn’t wait to get back.
We didn’t stay in Texas for very long, but I’m still so glad I made the move
So just a few months after my then-husband graduated — about a year and a half after I arrived in Texas, we packed a U-Haul, and headed west with our 6-month-old daughter, just like my grandmother did with my dad 50 years prior.
Looking back, I’m surprised to see how much I gave up to move to Texas — my dream job, a city I loved, and the life I’d built in Seattle. However, I’m also grateful for what I got in return: I had my daughter, built a successful business from scratch in a new city, and made dear friends I’m still in touch with today.
I also learned a lot about my dad’s side of our family, like why they loved fried okra and said “y’all” even though they lived in California.
Texas didn’t last, and neither did the marriage, but my willingness to risk everything for love — even when it didn’t work out the way I planned — is what made the rest of my life possible. I’m still glad I got in my Honda Civic and drove south all those years ago.
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