Long Tie? Bow Tie? Cravat?

I was standing at a round display table laden with expensive, conservative ties trying to choose one to go with my son's first suit. While browsing, a man and his wife walked up to table, and he said to her, "What would Bill O'Reilly wear?" I laughed out loud, thinking he had to be joking. "What would Bill O'Reilly wear?" Seriously? I felt like asking if he realized that he'd shared his musing aloud, just to make sure it was intentional--or maybe a joke. But no, one glance at the "tea party" tee stretched over his ample belly convinced me that he truly wanted the answer.

If people in this country have adopted that particular framework for decision making, we're done, I fear. I don't know what Bill would wear, but I know I could fashion a lovely silk gag out of it.

Truly Conflicted

I started this blog because, well, everyone has one so why not me? There are few readers and even fewer posts. Frankly, I've been hunkered down, letting life run me instead of the other way around, dealing with remote work, my husband's high-pressure job demands, parenting a tween and a full-blown teen and trying to survive a new life in Oregon. Now that I am truly in conflict, not just the kind of middling, maybe/maybe not conflict for which I named this blog, I understand it as a tool to help me catalog my fears and create some order for my thoughts. So I'm back, and those few of you who read my early attempts are invited along for the ride. Or not.

Only 24 months ago, we uprooted our family and life as we knew it in suburban Philadelphia and moved to Lake Oswego, a snobby little enclave just south of Portland, OR. My husband had gotten his "dream job" at a major sneaker company here, and for the sake of fulfilling this lifelong quest, we packed up and moved across the country. In the two years we've been here, we've made just a handful of good friends and haven't really rooted ourselves in anything--not the schools, not our new church, not a network of friends and colleagues that usually forms around parents and professionals who interact with a lot of different people in the course of our days. It's been dispiriting how shallow is our existence here, and despite promises to myself on an almost daily basis, I've taken to my tent like a refugee in a big, scary camp in a place far from my home, rather than put myself--and by extension my family--out there more. Maybe it's the gently slanderous comments about our "East Coast" ways that have made me less open; or our own snobbery at how this untamed place measures up (or doesn't) to our previous lifestyle in Pennsylvania. Maybe our expectations were too high, or Portland is a great place to visit but not necessarily to live. I can't answer the question of why we don't feel good here, but I suspect it's a combination of thinking our move would produce a better life and an under-preparedness for the stress of having to create one in a new place. And now, we may have to do it all over again.

The "dream job" is over. Jeffrey's employer laid off 500 people last month, including him. And three days ago, my employer asked me to move to the Bay Area so that I can physically be a part of the team, not working remotely from Portland. Fair enough, and it's a high compliment to be invited to the table--especially a table as skilled and energetic as the one doing the asking. But today it feels like the gun that was on the table (Jeffrey being without a job) is now a gun to our heads (move or lose the one job your family does have). It's not a simple pro vs. con formula, this kind of decision. Not when our son has been accepted to an amazing private high school here (a move made because OR public schools are ridiculously bad). Not when our daughter has made friends and created spaces for herself on sports teams and in the fabric of her school, and who adamantly refuses to entertain another move. Not when my husband is talking to companies all over the country. Not when I'm feeling the weight of the family's well-being and future resting entirely on my shoulders and can barely force myself out of bed on weekends because I'm exhausted, or because I want to hide, maybe.

It's all these things, but I understand it's more than these things too. I understand that I've been searching for meaning in my life for a long time--beyond professional achievement or acceptable parenting. I understand that the end of my career at AND 1 upended me in more ways than I could have imagined five years ago, and am still coming to grips with today. And now I feel our future slipping away, oddly. I thought we were on a path, a course charted to more security, not less, a course that would move us through our 40s and into our 50s with greater opportunities, not fewer, a course. I'm without a course now, rocketing through life with an almost breathtaking amount of responsiblity and no way to see clearly. I am truly in conflict.

The Smell of Hope in the Morning

It really is a new day in America, and I just can't believe we pulled it off.  WE!  I feel the pull of history and am swirling in the enthusiasm of an uplifted people.  But mostly I feel a weight on my heart--to do something better, be something better, bring something better to every interaction I have.  Surely that's part of the change we wrought.  Amen, and amen and amen.