This post is long overdue, and anyone reading it has probably already learned about it from Facebook, but I figured I should at least complete the trilogy (Moving On, Moving Back).

My last job was a one-year contract, and I started in August 2013. While I was there, four full-time positions opened up, and I was passed over for each one. Each time they told me that I was one of the top candidates and that it was a really hard decision, but it’s hard to hear that four times and not get pretty discouraged. The only thing that made it better was the fact that I didn’t really love my job—it was alright, but it wasn’t really where I wanted to be.

But when that fourth full-time person was hired, her job at BYU Independent Study opened up. I’d actually applied for this job three years ago, when I was still in grad school, but hadn’t gotten it then, which was probably a good thing; I doubt I’d have been able to finish my thesis while working full-time. But Independent Study is where I got my start as an editor when I was still a freshman, and I had long thought it would be pretty great to go back. I’d even told my boss twelve years ago that I wanted her job one day.

I applied for the job, turning in my application the day the posting closed. I got a call the next morning asking me to come in that week for an interview. They said that they thought they knew who the final candidates were, but then they saw my resume in the last batch of applications and it was awesome enough that they had to bring me in too. I figured that was a pretty good sign. They said they wanted to move fast, too—the person I’d be replacing was leaving that week, and they didn’t want to be without someone in that job for too long. If I did well in the first interview, they’d bring me in for a second one with the deans the next day.

On Wednesday I had the first interview, and it apparently went pretty well. I had just left the interview and had stopped to get gas when I got the call asking me to come back the next day for the final interview. I felt like the second interview went pretty well too, though I was a little less sure. They told me it might be a couple weeks before they made an offer, but that turned out to be a terrible lie—they called me Monday morning and said that the job was mine if I wanted it.

I said yes, I wanted it. (What am I, crazy?) We settled on a start date, I gave my notice at my current job, and we started frantically looking for a new place to live. I originally didn’t want to live in the town where we’d lived before because it’s a little podunk, but when we drove down here to look at some places, I immediately felt at home. After all, we lived here for five years when I was in grad school, and aside from our stint up in Salt Lake last year, it’s the only place my kids remember—Lego was only two when we moved down here. It felt a little ridiculous that we moved away from this town just a year ago and were coming back so soon (as if moving twice in a year isn’t ridiculous enough), but there we are.

I’m honestly a little surprised at how much I enjoy the job. I’ve had so many mediocre and terrible jobs over the years—plus a few miserable periods of unemployment—that I didn’t know if I’d ever have a job like this. I like being involved in both editing and layout again, and it’s really nice getting to make my own decisions about our house style and our templates. It may have taken a lot longer than planned, but it’s nice to finally be here. So here I am, in my old boss’s job, training a new crop of editors, and raising my kids in the town I’ve come to think of as home.