an anniversary, of sorts

Today was the season's first *hot* day, the first day that I could feel summer in my pores. I took the dog out in the wet, sunny morning for an hour-and-a-half walk through the open fields, riverbanks, campus paths, and cracked sidewalks of Hilly Hamlet.

During the walk, I looked at my watch and realized that, a year ago today, I moved to Hilly Hamlet.

I was not excited about moving here. At the time, I was working at an international nonprofit that I loved dearly (both the work I was doing and the nonprofit itself), I had great friends at the job, I had zero professional prospects in Hilly Hamlet, and my relationship with Clark was fraying at the edges.

But, in the fall of 20004, I told Clark that if he could get a tenure-track job, I would gladly quit my job and move with him. And get a tenure-track he did, in a year when there were a lot of openings in his particular subfield. So, I honored my promise, quit my job, and moved to this little college town I had never even visited.

A year later, things look so different. Clark and I are closer than we've ever been before and our relationship is as solid as it's been in the last six years. We have begun to settle into this town, buying a wonderful house. I've found a job that, though I'm not extraodinarily passionate about it , I seem to be good at and is not painful for me to do.

It's been a good year.