Backwards and forwards

I had a conference call with my therapist back in Pasadena the other day where we talked about how to make the decision or not to move to Lima and what that would mean for my life.  One of the concepts he presented was the idea of moving backwards.  We all want to move forward in our lives, but moving backwards is more difficult.  It is tough to live making $50,000 a year if you are used to making $100,000.  It is tough to go back to being line worker if your used to being the supervisor.

It is also tough to go back in the closet if your used to being an openly gay man.  It is equally tough to go back to a job that is limiting when you have gotten used to professional growth.  The move to Lima is a balance of these backwards and forwards.  Personally moving here means I likely won't date much and will need to step back into the closet in some sense as I can't refer to my ex-boyfriend at work and society at large here does not really have a place for someone who lives like I do in Pasadena.

Moving back though represents possibly going backwards career-wise.  Pasadena has for me the same small projects and small minded people I was working with.  It has the same small office politics and issues.  The work here is amazing and on a scale that we just don't deal with in Pasadena. 

Looking back on my life I went backwards career-wise in a sense when I moved to Pasadena, but it was such a large step forward personally that it all worked out.  Certainly the job was more money and a higher position that what I had in Florida.  But the projects were (and continue to be) of a smaller scale than what I was working on on Florida.  In some sense I was spoiled in that I just happened to be working on the largest ecosystem restoration project in the world, and was there largely by happenstance. 

So certainly the comparison is not perfect, but it does help me frame what I want to do.  In the end whatever career "regression" happened was more than offset but a richer, fuller, more honest and happier personal life.  The question would be if a richer professional life offset a dimer personal life here in Lima.