The decision to move to Vancouver
The west coast deal was in place. We knew that we would be moving to Vancouver eventually, but the ball was in Hillary's court as to when would be a good time in her career. By this point, we knew that she would likely be staying with the public service for the duration of her career.
In the late fall of 2008, Hillary brought it up.
I was looking for a new job. We were married less than six months. Hillary was five years into the Patent Office and wanted to explore some other areas of the government.
We talked and I got excited. I realized that this was serious and that right now we were having the conversation about moving back to my hometown.
I called my parents after we had had the discussion. I asked about the house next door. We learned it was empty and there were no tenants lined up.
The main thing I remember about this evening was just how little debate we had at the actual decision point. I think there may have been some parallels with the whole kids thing.
These were long running conversations. We respected each other deeply. In both cases, the person who was on the yes side of the debate was content to wait until the other person was ready.
On these life changing topics the conversations were almost never even mildly heated. We would just talk about what we as individuals wanted and trusted that the other person would act in the best interest of the team.
As far as I'm aware, we both did, every single time.
