With All Due Respect to Thomas Wolfe...

Sometimes, you can go home again.

(Caveat: On the off chance that any of my co-workers are reading this, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it all under your hat. I'm not quite prepared to deal with this on an official basis just yet.)

My wife Brandi, who will be receiving her Master's Degree in two short weeks, has accepted the position of Director of Health and Wellness at a fitness facility in Huber Heights, Ohio. I grew up in nearby Troy, so we'll soon be moving back to my old stomping grounds.

Those of you who know me, and even those of you who know me only by reading this blog on a regular basis, know that I have a strong affinity for my hometown. As much as I've come to love Bowling Green in the nearly ten years that I've lived here, it has never felt like "home" in quite the same way. I always hoped that I'd be able to make my way back to Troy at some point; I'm surprised and gratified that it has happened so soon.

Of course, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself here. We haven't started looking for a place to live just yet, and it isn't 100% certain that we'll settle in Troy. It feels like a pretty safe bet, though. Just as I wouldn't really care to live in the Toledo area if I didn't live in Bowling Green, I wouldn't really care to live in the Dayton area if I didn't live in Troy. But we'll see what happens.

Brandi starts her new job on May 7. I'm going to keep my job in Toledo for now. My parents have graciously offered to put Brandi up in the meantime, as I continue living and working here while I search for a job in that area. We'll find a place of our own and I'll move down there sometime this summer, either once I find a job or as the lease on our current apartment expires in early August. Hopefully it won't take nearly that long. In my mind, I'm thinking July, but hopefully it won't take that long either.

Yes, this means that Brandi and I will be living apart during the week and seeing each other only on weekends. Yes, that sucks, and it will be tough, but we have some practice. She lived near Akron for a year relatively early in our relationship, and this will be much the same. I'm not saying it will be fun, and I certainly hope it doesn't last for very long, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, either.

I'm very much looking forward to getting back home. My family is concentrated in that area, and it will be awesome to be around them on a regular basis once again. Living in Bowling Green, I'm lucky now if I see many of them more than once a year. I'm also glad I'll no longer have to tear out of work and blaze down the interstate on Friday nights in the fall to try to make it in time for kickoff. Granted, I'll be traveling north a fair amount now for BGSU sporting events, but as a good portion of those take place on Saturdays, they're a little easier to get to (and for those that are on weeknights...well, that's why I'm hoping for a job that offers flex-time).

I'm also looking forward to walking, running, and catching baseball games at Duke Park; sitting on the levee and watching the sunset over the Great Miami; eating at Lizzie's; having drinks at the Brewery and the Pinnacle; getting reacquainted with the Square; browsing at Little Professor and Around About Books; and being able to head down to Cincy for a Reds game on a whim, not to mention probably a thousand other things that just aren't coming to mind right now.

Make no mistake, leaving Bowling Green will be hard. It started with the university, but I've come to love the town as well. But Troy is only an hour and a half (or so) down the road, and we'll be back often. It would be even harder to leave if we were leaving for any other destination.