Our Love Story: Part 1 – Why I Moved to Illinois

Last week was National Marriage Week and Valentine’s Day. With all the love stories that flood social media and tv leading up to Valentine’s Day, I realized I haven’t shared my favorite love story with you yet. Time to fix that!

Part 1

As a freshman in college, I refused to declare a major. I didn’t like to commit to plans on a Friday night until Friday afternoon rolled around, so the thought of deciding what I wanted to be “when I grew up” was too much for me to handle. Lucky for me, the college I wanted to attend had a special program for undecided students.

As part of this program, I had to participate in a Career Explorations course. During the class we had guest speakers from many industries, took a few field trips, and learned how to apply for jobs. They were easy, mindless credits, and by the end of the course I was no closer to selecting a major than I had been when it started. (I actually didn’t pick my major until my junior year when the university required it to continue on as a student, but that’s another story for another day.)

In this class, we did an exercise where we applied for internships in a few fields of interest. Our professor was adamant that only upperclassmen would be considered for most internships and that this was just practice applying.

Much to my surprise, the hiring manager at one of the organizations I applied to called me. I had a phone interview that went well and they offered me the job. It was an unpaid internship as an investigator for crimes against kids. Essentially I would work for the city in the courthouse and follow around other investigators and participate in interviews with kids’ teachers, parents, etc to validate or discredit abuse claims. I was interested in psychology at the time and I love children, so it seemed like a great fit.

The only problem is that the internship was in the Chicago area.

My parents lived in Indianapolis and I lived at the university an hour or so away. Then I remembered my Aunt lived in the Chicago area, and my Mom confirmed it was the same town the internship was in! I called her and she very generously agreed to let me live with her for the summer. I don’t know what possessed her to say yes. I was not an easy teenager to live with, but I’m so grateful she did. Without her “yes” I may have never met Mark.

Check out Part 2!