Becoming the Browns - Part 9

I know some of you (Mrs. Sully) have been waiting for this for a long time!  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.  I promise we’re almost to the end (well, the wedding).  Just a few more installments.

August 2003…. I moved to Michigan.  (Yes Kim, Michigan, f-ing Michigan – (sorry mom I promise it came from someone else!))

I packed up all that could fit in my little car, packed everything else in a rental truck and Mr. Brown and I caravanned across I-94 to Ann Arbor.  When we arrived at my apartment building Mr. Brown’s father and brother met us to unpack everything.  That was a huge help.  Another huge help was the elevator.  I think we were all glad to not have to haul stuff up a few flights of stairs.

As far as apartments went, mine was pretty nice.  It had a good size open floor plan living/dining room, a tiny but functional kitchen and a decent size bedroom.  And great views of the river and arboretum.  Not bad for a place I rented sight-unseen.  I could walk to campus or ride my bike (which I did frequently) and I had a parking spot in the underground garage. 

And when the weekend was over and I was settled into my little place Mr. Brown drove home (or maybe he took the train?) and I was left alone in a city where the only people I know where Mr. Brown’s family.

School started and things went well.  It was so much different than my time at Berkeley.  It was hard to make great friends because most of the other students were married and so most people went home to their wives (mostly) or husbands and kids at the end of the day.  But I did get to know a lot of people, I found some study groups and I generally had a good time. 

If you remember, Mr. Brown was unsure about doing a long-distance relationship.  The first weekend he came back to visit me was 3 weeks after I first moved.  He came driving up to my apartment and I ran down to meet him.  And he was so excited to see me.  I think that being apart had cemented for both of us that we could make this work, that being together-apart was so much better than just being apart.  He missed me and after that he never again suggested that things might not work out.

The year passed quickly.  Mr. Brown visited a few times a month and we’d go to football games and explore the city.  I would go back to Chicago occasionally but it was harder for me to travel since I really needed the extra study time.  I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Tauber Institute and that afforded me a lot of extra opportunities – including the chance at a guaranteed internship with a top-notch company.  The internship was paid and got me 3 credit hours.

What was Mr. Brown doing while I was studying?  He moved out of his old apartment and moved in with a friend that had an extra bedroom in his condo.  It was a good short-term solution to his housing needs.  But with just one bathroom, a puppy that barked incessantly and Survivor-obsessed roommate I think he was very glad when his year there was over.

At the end of the school year I went through the interview process with Tauber and was assigned to a team at Boeing.  I was going to Seattle!  Boeing was my first choice for the internships and I was so excited to get to work on actual process-improvement projects.   I couldn’t wait to try out a new city and a new career.  (as an aside… while I was there the new 787 Dreamliner was still in development.  At the time it was known as the 7E7 because the series 8 number had not yet been decided.  It was an exciting time to be there)

Of course, I knew that at the end of the summer I would graduate and I would be looking for a new job.  Most Tauber students get offers from the companies they intern for so there was a high likelihood that I would be in Seattle permanently.  And what would Mr. Brown do?  Where ever I ended up I wanted him with me.  But I wasn’t about to have him uproot his life to be with me without a ring.  It wasn’t an ultimatum, more of a reality.  If you move to a new city just to be with a person and then for whatever reason you and that person part ways you are likely to be resentful of the person and the move.  I didn’t want to be responsible for that.  And so it was clear to both of us that the time had come (after 2.5 years of dating) to decide where we were headed.

If you are new to Becoming the Browns… start here.