Change of direction - Heading back home

May 19,

This weekend I was back in Cincinnati. The original reason was to attend a doctor’s appointment with my dad, which was a reason important enough, but ended up being a whole lot more.

When we moved Bella to the new school in Massachusetts we were full of hope, and at the beginning it started well, but things deteriorated throughout the months. Lots of mean girls once again, lots of jerks, and a whole lot of entitlement. Not to mention a highly insular culture. She made one good friend, Izzy, and for a while we thought that would be enough, but over the the last few weeks of the school year it became apparent that things were not good at all for her or for Izzy, and that there was no way they could handle getting back there. Her mom told me that since the environment at that school was so toxic, they were pulling Izzy out and sending her somewhere else. And that was the last straw for us. While we didn’t want to give up after the first year, and made the effort and investment to send her to the private school for year two, we were not about to try yet a third school. Besides, after the experience with the first two, we had no reason to believe that a third school would be any different. We were done.

With lots of personal and professional dread, I scheduled a meeting with my boss when I was in Cincinnati, and went to meet her in person. I told her I wanted to be moved back to Cincinnati byAugust, and shared some of the stories that finally made us be done with Boston. She was not necessarily surprised with the additional stories, since she knew things had not been great for Bella, but was sad for her and for us and - thank God - was highly supportive of moving us back as long as I committed to travel back and forth to Boston and get the job done. 

Getting her support, and the support of my incoming manager was a huge relief, but it was not the end of the story. The weekend was still extremely stressful as we needed HR confirmation that the move would be supported, which we finally got on Monday morning. Things have to move very quickly, both for the company and for us, so the next few weeks will be some crazy ones.

I am extremely disappointed that our Boston experience has not been what we had hoped for, and that it will end so abruptly. But we have to do what is best for Bella and after two years in Boston it is clear that this is NOT it.