Becoming The Browns - Part 1

I've been itching for awhile to tell the story of how Mr. Brown and I met and came to be the family we are today. I figure this can be a series of posts. Hopefully each will be intriguing enough to have you waiting with bated breath for the next installment (or at least interest enough to read a next installment when it comes up).

To tell the story of how we became The Browns you first need a bit of background on each of us. I was raised in central California. My entire family lives there still. There are a small handful of us who have moved away from California but the majority of people still live within a few hours radius of my home town. Being the adventurous person I am I made the leap and moved out of state to go to college at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

Notre Dame was an amazing experience. It developed so much of the person I have grown to be. I am deeply in love with the place and the people. As with everything else in my life up to that point, I had a plan for after graduation. I would attend graduate school in Operations Research/Industrial Engineering at Georgia Tech and then get a job at an airline. It was all worked out. I had an internship lined up down the road in Fort Wayne, IN for the summer and was proudly holding my acceptance letter to the #1 I.E. school in the country for the fall.

And then came graduation weekend. I decided that I had been away from my family for too long and wanted to spend my last summer before truly embarking on adulthood at home. So I called and resigned my spot at the internship. I got another job at home in California. And then I met a boy. I boy I really liked. And suddenly I started to think that maybe I was crazy for wanting to move all the way to Georgia and pay out-of-state tuition when I could pay in-state tuition at another Top 5 school right there in the Golden State (and I wouldn't have to break up with the boy). I got the brilliant idea to call UC Berkley and at least ask if I could reapply for a different semester (I'd already been accepted there and declined). To my surprise and delight they were happy to have me for the fall.

And so already the plan had changed. No great IE internship in Indiana. No spot at Georgia Tech. Instead I would be spending 1/4 of the amount of money on a excellent education, close to my family and continue to be happily ensconced in my new found relationship.

I didn't count on the fact that I would hate it at Cal. I'm not talking about "my classes were hard" and "I don't like my roommate" kind of unhappiness. I'm talking downright misery and fear and anxiety every.single.day. I liked my classes and classmates but that was about the only thing I liked. I hated where I lived (Lake Merritt in Oakland). I was terrified of living alone in that city. I missed my friends from ND terribly. I had gone from having all of my closest friends within a 5 minute walk of my dorm room to having exactly 1 friend in the area who lived an hour away. And the boy.... I liked him but he also lived an hour away. And then I found out he lied on his resume. He lied about finishing his degree when really he had left school a semester early. Who does that? And did I mention he was a vegetarian? Nothing wrong with being a vegetarian but as a steak-loving girl it was just not the right relationship for me.

So exactly 2 months in to my education at Berkeley I left. Just like that I quit the program, packed up my car, relinquished my apartment and drove back home to my parents house.

I am lucky enough to have the most understanding parents in the world who want nothing more for me than to be happy and healthy. They were fine with me quitting graduate school. But I could not live off of them. I had to get a job. So I got a temp job while I looked for a full-time position with a respectable salary.

And this is where the story of The Browns really begins.