Havin' My Cake

So I haven't written a decent update in a while. Well, what is there to say? My daily activities include working, washing dishes, reading books, playing Scrabble, riding my bicycle, to name a few (no one can ever name them all no matter how one may try, and really nobody wants to read a complete activities list of anyone's, anyway, now do they). I live in a country-esque setting, and I'm loving it. It's getting chillier here, and sometimes it rains. Every day usually/always consists of fog and sun, intermittently. And there is actually a fall, as everything is no longer all green but includes reds and browns as well. I'm learning everyday and striving to live in each and every minute, but also with a reasonable eye to the future and how actions translate into consequences no matter which way you live or look at it.

Is this reasonably vague or annoyingly cliché? Well, alright, here is what is exactly at this moment on my mind, you who may from time to time tune in to my blog and skim its contents:

When I started my job search here I wasn't convinced I'd find one good job. Now I find myself in a predicament; I have two long-term job offers, both places want me, and I want both of them. However, both are full time so I cannot choose both.

So now I REALLY understand the saying "you can't have your cake and eat it too."

I used to think this made no sense because if you didn't have any cake how could you eat it, in other words, you had to have it in order to eat it!?! But after you eat your cake, it's gone, so you no longer have it. Hence the saying. (I'm slow sometimes.)

When there are difficult decisions to make, how do you make them? When I knew I had to give living in northern California a try, I couldn't even give energy to thinking about all that I was leaving behind. I knew if I did I wouldn't leave. The result was I spent a lot of lonely time here in an unfamiliar place thinking about all that I left behind. I couldn't have my cake and eat it too. If I would have made pros and cons lists about my friends and family and familiarity back in Wisconsin and pros and cons lists about living in northern California and trying to make a life with Mike, which set of lists would have won?

I have no way of knowing because I never made those lists. I don't know what purpose that would serve now. I am here. I'm putting my all into it. Before moving away from home I used to say "if I do go I might regret it; if I don't go I WILL regret it." That was the only way I knew how to make a rational choice of 'to move or not to move'. That was my logic and it worked for me. I wasn't hearing anything else anyway, but that's another tangent some other time, or never.

So can I apply this now to two great jobs and which one to take? As a matter of fact I can. If I walk away from my non-profit Angel Fund grant-making work, I WILL regret it. At this point in my life anyway. So that must be the answer.

I did, I'll have you know, make my pros and cons lists for what I will lovingly refer to here as Job A and Job B. The pros list of Job A was equal in length to the cons list of Job B; while the opposite lists respectively were significantly shorter and also similar in length. So that could also be an answer for me, right? Job A wins. Right?

Why oh why can't I just have two pieces of cake? Yes, this is like asking why there aren't 48 hours in the day instead of 24. Yes, I know it's silly and nonsensical. But I never claimed to make sense. And I never claimed to enjoy making choices.

On the flip side of all of this, it feels pretty excellent to feel so wanted by employers. Especially since I've already had a chance to prove myself at both jobs, it's not like I just nailed two interviews. They know my work ethic, they know my skill sets, and they want me. (It stands to reason that the job market here is so poor for a reason, that I'm not so fantastically wonderful like I'm slanting this post, but that I'm relatively better compared to the options around me. In other words there is quite an unemployment problem here, and quite a poor job market here. Good employees are hard to find. But let's not focus on the negative, shall we? This is about something else.)

Ah, well, aside from sharing what has been on my mind I have an uncanny desire to go eat some cake now...*

P.S. Job B is the music festival job. Giving up such a fun job is no easy task, let me tell you.

*I forced Mike to let me read him this blog entry and his two responses were a) it sounds like a normal Naomi tangent and b) you could have been more honest about the fact that we have not finished unpacking yet.