I had a lovely visit with Julia, Mark, Gram and Elliot in April in gay ol' Madison Wisconsin. The sun was out and it was a fun trip full of babies and good friends.
I got back on a Sunday and was oh so happy to be home. Mostly because I was well into my second trimester and starting to get swollen and uncomfortable. There's no place like a comfortable home. Plus I missed my hubbin' and hound.
Mark picked me up from the airport and we drove home. The second we got in the door I headed for the couch and Mark stopped me and said "I have something to tell you". I froze. I knew instantly what it would be.
"Bad news, We are moving to Fairbanks", he said. Tears sprang to my eyes and I was flattened. The first thought that went through my mind honestly was of my dog. My first thought was about how he was going to freeze his ears off when he goes to the bathroom in the winter. Weird little thought huh? But if you know me and if you know how I feel about that dog you'd understand. Second thought, my life is over.
Fairbanks to an Anchorage grown woman is like the worlds worst joke. We grow up feeling bad for people that live there (albeit slightly jealous of their summers). The phrase "armpit of the world" was a description of how I felt about the town that was soon to be home. My feelings about Fairbanks were not based on actual experience. I had only been to Fairbanks twice and none since I've been an adult. I had a hard time even remembering what it was like there, but I was pretty convinced it sucked. Plus, I was nervous about the upcoming trip up there to find a place to live. It would be a "first impression" trip and I was not feeling optimistic.
I was upset about the move for many many reasons! 1) We own a house in Anchorage that we just had remodeled to our liking two weeks prior to finding out 2) I was 6 months pregnant when we found out. 3)I think I hate Fairbanks and would rather live ANYWHERE else (except anything more north of Fairbanks) and 4) I like my life in Anchorage. I built my life in Anchorage to be exactly the way I wanted it. Perfect job situation for mommyhood (at least I think so and that's what counts), good house, great friends, comfort, family, you name it, it was custom. Happy little clams we were. Granted we always want more, had we been given the opportunity to live somewhere cool (i.e. San Diego, Denver, etc.) we would have jumped on it.
Worst of the worst for me was that I spent the last 3 years preparing myself to want to be a mom. Don't get me wrong, I WANT to be a mom more than anything, but it took A LOT of preparation to get to that point. I spent years getting my "career" where I wanted it so that I could stay home and still work happily part time and getting the house and environment ready for comfortable baby rearing. This totally derailed me. I was devastated. How could I let my little baby boy grow up in a place I hated? How could I raise him in an armpit? All that careful planning out the door.. bleck!
Over the next 3 weeks, there was a lot of tears. I was pissed and pregnant, not a good combo! Mark left for Fairbanks the following week, so I had to list the house, hire the movers, find a place to live in Fairbanks, quit my job, and say "see ya" to everyone I love on my own. It sucked!
My first impressions of Fairbanks were not good. I tried to call it Funbanks to trick myself. It didn't work. The first place we looked at to rent had chickens in the backyard that he wanted to keep there, the second was old base housing that looked like a dungeon. Plus every business we went into looked like a Denny's. It probably didn't help that we were staying at the Super 8 motel (the company had a "sweet" deal with them) which was right next door to the world's northern most Denny's. It was bleak! Nevertheless, we found our place. Not perfect but perfectly adequate. It was clean and bright and modern and.... too small and amazingly expensive (but that's the banks for ya). But it will do and I felt better that we have a place that worked. Plus our landlords were great (people we'd want to be friends with), which made me feel optimistic about Fairbanksians.
By week 2, the house was getting put together and things were fitting. It really wasn't so bad, in fact it looked nice (pics coming later). I had to admit to myself, Fairbanks was not so bad. For some reason I thought moving to the Banks would be like camping. A temporary and necessary evil that I needed to force myself to do without the comfort of home. But it was home, it was working.
The following week I started to get confident. I was learning the ropes. Granted some things are really odd here- conserving water like it's worth its weight in gold (we even have European toilets), the Bently "mall", the fact that this town is smack dab in the middle of nowhere, and also that the Northern most Fred Meyer is the busiest place on earth (you can't move your shopping cart without hitting 3 people). But, I found an ice cream shop I loved (important to a prego) and a beautiful walking loop that suited me just fine. I was on my way to liking it....
Fairbanks is not that bad!
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