from the desk of... candidate 1

Family Matters

The variables to consider when job searching are numerous. Each time I think I have accounted for all of the factors that will matter in my job search some new thing surfaces. Consistently, I have thought about location – I want urban, weather – I want warm, and pay – I want more. The newest factor that I have added to my list is my family.

I am an only child with strong ties to my mom. While I am extremely independent, as I get older I find that my relationship with my mom is getting better. Since leaving for college, I have always been at least a four-hour drive from home and for a year I was a solid two-hour flight away. However, as I think about moving again I wonder if I should minimize the distance between my mom and me.

This thought seems more important now than it did when I went away to school. Now, mom and I are more of friends than we have ever been. While she supports me in less tangible ways than she did in the past, her presence in my life seems larger than it ever has been.

When I chatted with my faculty advisor about this, she suggested that I should make my next move independent of consideration for my family. Based on her experience “these things have a funny way of working out,” and in this scenario there is no real reason to anticipate my needs of those of my mom. She suggested that I could only respond to those needs, when they actually manifest themselves as needs. Also, I distinctly remember my faculty advisor asking: “What if you mom doesn’t what you close by?” I never really considered that part.

For many people, family is extremely important and for others family members are the people you visit for holidays only. Like other adventures in my life, I have tended to follow my heart and I don’t think this job search will be any different. And if nothing else, it is always fun to have my mom visit me in the cool places that I live. She has up until this point, and I don’t anticipate that part to change.