Since we left Colorado four years ago, there were three things that we’ve been trying to find:

1. family that we love,
2. jobs that we enjoy,
3. and our way back to Colorado.

For two years we tried to like Boston, but it was never our city. We met great people and made good friends, and had some pretty impecable adventures. We spent time with family. We built degrees and experience and then took flight. Boston wasn’t ours for the taking.

And then suddenly Seattle was home – is home? I don’t know anymore. We got lucky. I reprogrammed my compass and fell in love. Check one thing off the list. We had found another corner of our world that made us tick, where it felt like we belonged, where – for the first time in four years – we had family. The real kind. The call-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind. The rally-for-an-adventure-on-the-drop-of-a-hat kind. The happy-in-front-of-a-fire-and-falling-asleep-together-on-a-couch-kind. The best kind. We enjoy Seattle so much that we recently began to wonder if we needed to go back to Colorado at all. We’re one-for-two we knew, but we wondered if we needed number three at all. We had found ourselves family, but still no great jobs. No invigorating purpose.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it all changes. What we’ve waited for happens. He lands a job. A great job. Not the dream, but so much closer. It would give him reason to get up in the morning. He’d be thrilled by the challenge and excited by the potential. And I’d be thrilled that he’s finally thrilled. I’d be excited to see him excited. Now we’re two-for-three and that felt like light years from where we’d been perpetually stalled.

Except, get this – the job he landed, it’s in Colorado! Hurray! Everything has fallen into place….Or has it? If this is what we’ve so badly wanted why does it feel so scary? Why am I so sad by the prospect of leaving a life that only partially fit? Why am I so anxious about what life here would look like? I’m not sure I’m ready to walk away and yet it doesn’t feel like my decision to make.

Turns out I wanted Colorado conditionally. On my terms. I was willing to recreate my Eden from yesteryear, but I’d at least like to land in the utopia of which I had grown so found, my mecca: Boulder. No such luck. Now, if we decide to stay, we’re two hours away trapped in a town that feels completely surreal. All fur collars rather than greasy dreadlocks. Leather pants instead of corduroy. Living in this Colorado would be so different than I had imagined. We’re three-for-three (well, I still need a job, so I suppose we’re more like two-point-five-for-three), but it all feels really bittersweet. Is this what we want?

Someone brilliant once said: “A rut is also a groove.” And I get it. Because for the past eighteen months we felt like we were in a rut. A really really deep one. Standing still. We had taken ten steps forward only to be frozen in frustrating ambiguity. Should we stay or should we go? Or do we really really go (like, AWAY)? Now though, the universe has forced us out of our rut and as we decide whether to take the leap I realize it felt so much more like a groove. A delicious rhythm. A familiarity that I took for granted. A security and a belonging in an imperfectly beautiful place.

Now do we dare ditch the groove?

Would that be crazy?

I know the answer.

I know we have to.

But it scares me half to death.