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England

The Contract Is in the Mail

I’ve signed the contract for a new life in the country. It’s in the mail, and now all that remains is to negotiate an end date to my city life when my boss returns from vacation next week. I’m on three months notice, but I’d like to just work out the end of this year. Start afresh in 2009 and all that.

After my weekend negotiation angst, the HR ladies got back to me on Monday. There was no more money but there was, despite my irrational musings, still an offer. Ironically the failure to come up with more cash brought clarity to the decision. When I got the news, I immediately knew I was going to accept. Being a stupid human, I told them I had to think about it, then called back in fifteen minutes to say yes.

Husband’s depression-riddled and infuriating ambivalence about the job lifted once it was clear I had made a decision. The whole thing was reminiscent of our move to England, when he got cold feet and I became the unlikely late supporter supplying the required brio. He just wanted me to make a decision.

Earlier that morning husband and I had played our old favourite ‘captains of contingency’ game: what’s the worse that could happen? The biggest flaw with me taking this job is that we’ll be spending two nights apart while he continues to work primarily in London. If this becomes a source of misery for either of us, we reasoned I could beg my new employer to transfer me to the office that’s commutable from London.

Husband also one upped me in the worst case scenario/captain of contingency stakes. He figured if the pressure of working for his lordship gets all too much and he cracks or gets fired, a convalescence in the country is far more attractive than a London meltdown. In other words, my new life in the country has something in it for him.

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