I applied for a job in Denver and they called me back, expressing interest. :eek:
I went to school in Boulder and stayed on for a few years after but couldn’t really get anything going career-wise. I left, but swore inwardly that I’d come back because I liked living there so much. Not Boulder, specifically, but somewhere along the Front Range would be nice. I also swore that wouldn’t come back without a decent job. That was a little more than 14 years ago.
Well, now I have something going career-wise and a spot that may be suitable for me opened up at the CU Health Sciences Center in Denver. Now I have a family, and I’d sure like to raise my daughters in Colorado. My wife’s on board, too, but man this is scary.
I know there’s no way they’ll be able match the salary I’m making working for a pharmaceutical giant in New York City. I wouldn’t expect them to. I’d be surprised if they came up with half of what I make now. So there’s the money thing. Another element to add to the mix is that my company’s doing a top to bottom review of operations with an eye to improving efficiency, you get the picture. The project I’m working on is being phased out and in my area there isn’t a whole lot coming down the pike. And the stuff that is coming down the pike is covered. They’ve been whittling away at my department over the last couple of mergers and restructurings, so my future here is in no way assured.
Then there’s my family. My father’s sick with metastatic lung cancer and sadly I don’t think he’s going to make it til next Christmas. My parents live in Virginia with my sister and her family, so there’s always family around. We visit them every couple of months. My sister lives here in the city but she’s pretty independant. She’s in a wheelchair and every so often I have to help her with something. She now has a boyfriend, though, and he’s been great taking care of her and I don’t hear from her as much as I used to. So I think she’ll be ok, but we’ll miss each other for sure. She and my parents are my biggest concern.
My wife’s family is kind of scattered around. Her mother is in good health and living comfortably and she has a brother in Atlanta, so there aren’t that many strings holding her here.
Then there’s pulling out of New York City to live in Colorado. Twist my arm.
We live in a small apartment and have a small house upstate. We’ve been here together for 13 years now, so they’re going to have to bulldoze us out of here. Initially I was worried that my wife and daughters (almost 2 years old) would miss the friends that they’ve made here since she’s become a mother. But they’ve been moving away, too, so it’s not like there’s a solid community we’re going to be moving out of.
There are also the changes the Front Range has been through since I left in '89. I’ve been back a dozen since times since I left, so I don’t think there will be anything terribly shocking, but still - I’m sure it’s a lot different.
My wife always says I have a distinctly different face whenever we travel out west. Distinctly in a good way. I guess I glow or don’t look so pinched or something.
Anyway, just rambling. I’m going to call CU this afternoon and see what’s going on. It could be a no brainer one way or the other, but I doubt it. We’re going to agonize over this because my prediction is they’re going to offer me enough so we can live out there but the transition could be a real bitch.
Colorado is a wonderful, charming, mult-facted place to live; as long as you have a job. The job market is very poor right now, and doesn’t seem like it’s getting much better. Denver will not have any of the same charisma that NYC does and you definatly won’t have as much diversity. I would say go for it but I don’t know how entrenched you are in NYC or how much you would lose if you wanted to return. That said, I would move back to Boulder in a hearbeat if I thought I could get by. I miss real snow. 