The time has come for me to start actually using this site. Let’s see how this goes!

As some of you may or may not know, I started a new position (Senior Learning Scientist at MIT) in May of 2018. The job has been everything I hoped it would be and I am ecstatic about the opportunities that are ahead. The only downside has been the need to leave my family behind in Chicago while I started this work. (Selling a house, finding a new place to live in a new city, and relocating kids, an entire household of things, and a dog takes time and planning!)

The academic community spends a lot of time talking about the stresses of the job. I often find these conversations focus on the professional challenges or the general lack of time for family. I don’t often hear about the challenges faced by our families, especially as our loved ones are usually the people stuck dealing with our late nights, email obsessions, poor health, and general testy dispositions (these might just be descriptors of me!). Add being forced to manage a household, children, and general life to the list my wife has dealt with in the last 2 months.

Now might be a good time to mention that my wife is amazing! I am fully aware that people are supposed to say things like that. I ACTUALLY MEAN IT! I will save all of her personal and professional accolades for another post (or her own blog someday). Needless to say, she is exceptional at her very important job, a great mom, and somehow manages to find enough energy to keep encouraging and supporting me to pursue my dreams. It wasn’t easy for her to say yes to this move. She knew it would result in her having to stay in Chicago and be responsible for dealing with much of our collective lives while working full time and me living a 16 hour car ride away. She said yes to this opportunity because she knew this was a once in a lifetime chance for me. She said yes because we had a lot of hard, complicated, and uncomfortable conversations about what this opportunity meant for me, us, and our family. She said yes because I am lucky enough to have a partner in life who cares about me and my well being as much as her own. Words on this virtual page can never fully encapsulate how much I love my wife!

Anyhow, back to the point of this post, after a lot of stress and effort, my family is finally making the big move to Boston. It took every bit of effort we collectively had to get the house packed. The two kids even got into the spirit. Well, the 5 year old did. At 22 months, I am not really sure how much could be expected of the youngest.

After my wife and the kids flew out East (YES, she flew with both kids! Alone!) I spent hours packing up the last 2% of our things. If you haven’t every moved a long distance, the last 2% is the absolute worst. It is usually made up of all the stuff you really need to live day-to-day and your most cherished possessions. This makes packing it hard, stressful, and time-consuming. Way more time-consuming than anyone can or should every really imagine. For me this packing was followed by 5 hours of sleep, 3 hours of yard work, 7 hours of making sure the movers didn’t break anything, 3.5 hours of cleaning, and 6 hours of driving with the dog. I arrived at my Mom’s house in Ohio at 3am and slept for 6 hours (more like passed out). Finally, after another 9 hours in the car, I made it to Boston and my new home and was reunited with my family.

I am not going to glorify this process. My wife and I have had some tense exchanges. No one is enjoying sleeping on air-mattresses as our worldly belongings, including our comfy beds, are shipped half-way across the country. The stress of making sure the kids have proper care, they begin daycare for the summer months tomorrow morning, took a pretty heavy toll on my mental well-being over the last couple weeks. I won’t even get into the details associated with turning on/off utilities, changing billing information, car registration, and trying to find new doctors.

With all these challenges, this move would not have been possible without a lot of support. First and foremost, I huge thanks goes to my wife and kids. They have been wonderful throughout this process. Next, my family, especially my brother and soon to be sister-in-law. Without their generosity (I have been sleeping on their spare bed for 2 months) this move would have been an even bigger financial and logistical challenge. Finally, my new employer, colleagues, and boss have been amazingly accommodating and understanding of the challenges I have faced in making this move. The kindness they have shown me is a pretty strong indicator I made the correct decision in accepting this job.

Fingers crossed all our stuff arrives soon and unharmed. While unpacking and settling into our new routines will present new challenges, at least I finally have my wonderful family around. They really do make everything much better!