What do you do when the love of your life gets a job offer in another city?

It's a rough question, and one that has cost me a lot of sleep over the last few days.

So it's 10:30 at night, Lisa and I are all cuddled up and just drifting off to sleep when she says, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. Irv sent me a job opportunity in Medicine Hat."

Yup. I was awake all night.

Lisa finished a two-year broadcasting diploma course last spring. Problem is, we live in a fairly big city, so breaking into the news media around here is pretty tough. There are some young stations around, but they are not currently handing out jobs to college grads with no experience.

The job is a fairly decent one, being part of the filming and editing team for a local television station. It's a feeder station, one that people go to for a while after college, get their feet wet, and then move on to a bigger market. It's the perfect starting point for her career.

Perfect.

But she would have to move away.

Medicine Hat is a whopping three hours away by car, so it's not really all that far. We could probably handle that part of it, if we had to. Make arrangements to swap cities on weekends and such... Arrangements can be made.

But the job doesn't offer enough money to make that feasible. It's an okay starting salary, but insufficient to run two separate households, two cars, two Internet connections... all the necessities that we would now have to have two of.

Therefore, for Lisa to take this job, we would have to move. Both of us.

On the other side of the equation is my job. I am working in the job of my dreams. Okay, not exactly the job of my dreams -- which is getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to write about how much I'm enjoying lying on the sandy beaches of Australia -- but damn good anyway. I am in the web department of a major metropolitan newspaper. The heart of the 'New Media' for the city. This is a job I've been angling towards since I got out of college. This job pays well, is fulfilling, and has great propects for advancement and personal growth.

At what point do my needs outweigh Lisa's? At what point do hers become more important?

Simple answer: You choose the one that is best for you as a family.

Like it's ever that easy.

We're in a sort of a holding pattern right now. Lisa had an interview with them on Sunday. It went well, she says, but won't hear if she gets it until the end of the week.

If she is offered the job, then we have to see if it's possible for me to do my job by telecommuting. Maybe work two or three weeks in the Hat, then come back for a week and work in the office. Weather permitting, of course (the road between here and there gets shut down a couple times a year by winter storms). I've mentioned the possibility to my bosses, but of course they are not willing to commit as to what we can do until Lisa actually does get offered the job.

If it is possible, then Lisa will go down and live with a little-known aunt in the city for a month or so to set up a new apartment and the like. I will pack up our home and move on down there when the new apartment is available. Eek.

If it isn't possible to telecommute, well, then we stay here and Lisa keeps looking for a way to break into the local market.

Seems simple, eh? But I keep getting these horrible feelings. I worry that by staying here, we will be hurting Lisa's chance to follow her dreams. I worry that the change will be too much for us, and we'll break up. I worry about moving and finding that I can't do my job remotely and one of us being forced to quit our jobs.

She hasn't even been offered the job yet, and I'm already working on my ulcer.

What would you do?

You copped out yesterday, you know.

Talk about God

Take me home, big fella