It's no secret that a lot of women, no matter how successful they are or how "well-married", think that they will end up a bag lady living under a bridge in their retirement years.

My inner bag lady is well known to me. She is dressed in bright layers, yellow, red and purple and wears a woolen cap over unwashed hair. She piles all of her belongings in a large shopping cart and has a chihuahua whom she loves. She names him "Edward" in a last ditch effort to inspire pride. She pushes the cart with her dog perched close to her and picks cans and bottles out of garbage cans to turn in for nickels. She dreads nighttime when it's no longer safe and sleeps on bus benches and near high-trafficked areas. She has no money. Her son lost touch with her. She fears she has cancer. She hums Amazing Grace or Stairway to Heaven, according to her mood.

So last week I had to make a choice: take a guaranteed job in North Carolina with good benefits and one I could work at for the next 10 years until I retire. OR move to a small town in Colorado and build a house on our property  with no easy jobs available so I'll either have a long commute to a small hospital if I'm lucky or no foreseeable work or start my own small business and build it brick by brick.

We had planned this move years ago when we bought the property but we hadn't figured into it the lack of jobs or career opportunities in small Colorado towns for me. And now here we are, talking to the home builders, telling him what kind of roof we want [steel], what kind of cabinet wood [oak], where the house should be placed in relation to the river. And I get a big, fat job offer from North Carolina.

And we have a 12% unemployment rate in the U.S. Do I dare look a gift horse in the mouth?

Fayetteville, North Carolina. A sweet town with a low cost of living. 90 miles from beautiful beaches. A mild enough climate that you can golf 12 months out of the year. [Not that we do but that's how they describe their seasons]. Lake houses that sell for $200,000.00. A guaranteed government job for me and hikes in the cool, dense woods for my husband. 

Oh, how I long to make that choice. Safe. Predictable. Retirement money socked away monthly. Checks coming in twice a month. Vacation days and sick days and paid holidays! Coming home each night after work to my husband and dogs, the lake shimmering in the dusk as we sit on our back porch and exchange stories about our day. Watching bats swoop upward and then down. Sending checks to my son to help him out without feeling a pinch. Yes. We should definitely move to North Carolina.

Ah, but not so quickly. My husband, Colorado bred & born, says his "bones are calling him home." Some of his relatives live an hour away from where we'd move, close enough to see them when we want to, far enough away to be unobtrusive. We have 6 acres of our own to grow alfalfa to sell to owners of hungry horses. We can plant a large vegetable and herb garden each spring. My husband will put stone steps down to the river so we can sit and watch the twirls and pockets slip by and dip our feet in the cold water. I will buy a bicycle and ride into town, a one street downtown called Main Street and I won't have to chain it to a post, just lean it against a wall and go shopping.

But with no retirement money accruing monthly. No paid sick days. No secure job to depend on. A reminder once again that although my life has never been a straight line, it's a loop de loop of sacrifice and compromise for my husband and my son.

Oh North Carolina! You tempt me! My practical, fearful bag lady self who is sure there will never be enough. She practically launches herself in your direction. Save me! I don't want to be poor, broke and alone. Guarantee your commitment to me. Eradicate that future bridge I'll be living under! I need dog food for Edward.

But no. A leap of faith is just what it says it is. God didn't bring me this far along to drop me on my head now. I choose the road less traveled by. The strong smell of river water and alfalfa, a garden, a red wheelbarrow. My best years are ahead of me. And as my teenage son so often says to me these days, "Mom. I don't want my whole life to be about earning money. I want to do something more with my life."

Well, me too, son. Me too.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged into a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost