I didn't want to say anything about it because, yes, I was grateful, but that job that I praised so highly back in November (see December 7 blog post) was a tragedy. I can only describe it as a gut-wrenching, feel-like-I'm-going-to-vomit-from-the-anxiety-for-eight-hours-a-day, lousy excuse of a job (that is not an exaggeration. When I went into work I always checked to make sure I had a trash can within arm's reach.) And it was just as bad, maybe even worse, for Jacob. We were miserable. Grateful, yes, but miserable nonetheless.
One day, I got an email from my sister (who lives in Missouri, as you may recall from last year's May 12 blog post). The library in her tiny town was hiring. At first, I dismissed the idea. What were the chances of that working out? But a few days passed, and the idea of applying kept nagging at me. I finally told Jacob. He applied. We waited.
The job closed on April 14th. We had taken off some time that following week for our anniversary trip. We toyed with the idea of using that time off to drive to Missouri and asking for an interview (remember when I said we didn't decide where we were going until the night before we left...that's why), but finally decided that would be too weird of us. We settled on going to Zion National Park and made reservations. As we were pulling out of our apartment parking lot the next day, Jacob realized that he had a voicemail message on his phone. He listened to it. The library wanted to interview him for the job.
We sat in stunned silence for a while, trying to figure out what to do. He finally called them back. They wanted to interview over Skype, but Jacob knew that was asking for trouble. He said he could come meet them in person the next week, and they agreed. We left for Zion National Park.
We returned to work the following Monday, then left directly from work for the seventeen-hour drive. We didn't exactly have permission to take more time off of work, but both kind-of felt the risk was worth it.
We arrived in Missouri on Tuesday night. We packed in as much fun with my nieces and nephews as we could on Wednesday, except for when Jacob went in for his interview at two o'clock. He left at 1:40 and was back by 2:00. I met him at the door.
"What are you doing?" I asked him. "Your interview is right now!"
"Beka," he answered, "my interview is already over."
We had driven thirty-four hours for a five minute interview. I could have cried. I almost did.
We left at 5:00 a.m. the next morning to drive the seventeen hours back to Utah. We arrived home that evening and reported back to work the next morning.
It was a rough few days. It was hard going back to work when we were so tired, hard dealing with the repercussions of taking so much additional time off, hard to think that we had lost a gamble that we had put so much time and effort into.
That following Tuesday morning, Jacob got a phone call and was offered the job. Sitting next to him and able to overhear the conversation, I was weeping before he had even hung up the phone. I cried for hours. I called my sister. She cried, too. I called my parents. Nobody could believe it at first.
His start date was set for two weeks later. We immediately quit our jobs. The days passed in a haze. We had to pack everything, deep-clean the apartment, sell our apartment contract, get a moving truck, drive the seventeen hours again, find a new place to live, unpack everything, register the car, get new driver's licenses, etc,...and then Jacob had his first day of work in his new job, and I waited for him to come home a few minutes later because I thought for sure he had heard wrong and didn't actually have a job...but he didn't until eight hours later, and then he was grinning and suddenly everything felt real. And so, so good.
It was crazy. We are crazy. But every night Jacob comes home with this dazed "I-love-my-job-and-can't-believe-this-has-happened" look on his face, and I think about how blessed we are that this gamble paid off.
