I moved to Colorado with my husband Eric in the summer of 1999.  Before that, I had lived in the Willamette Valley of Oregon for most of my life and in leaving it behind, I left all of my family and friends as well.  It came down to a choice between being close to them and saving my marriage; or more accurately, saving my husband.  Eric loves teaching, but couldn’t find any permanent positions teaching Philosophy at the college level in Oregon.  He’d taken a job as an administrator at Oregon State University, where I was finishing my undergraduate degree, but he just wasn’t happy. 

One day, I was on our computer typing a final paper for a class when he came home from work.  I asked him how his day was and he started to tell me all of the annoying things his boss had done, all the work she’d needed him to look at “immediately” because she’d either done it wrong or forgotten a deadline, and all the frustrating meetings he’d had.  As he talked, he slid down the wall and ended up crouched on the floor in the corner of the room, practically in tears.  I had never seen him like that. 

© Salahub 2003