By Sue Shellenbarger
From The Wall Street Journal Online
Many cubicle dwellers in their 20s feel blocked off from the American Dream by killer work hours, job stress and housing prices that far exceed their grasp. After asking herself at age 28, "Is this all there is?" Melissa Mauro and her husband took what family members said was a crazy risk -- and found a satisfying answer. Her story shows the potential power of risk-taking at critical stages of a marriage.
Ms. Mauro, now 32, still remembers the moment in 2002 when, sitting in her cube at a New York City communications agency, she tapped out an email to me at The Wall Street Journal lamenting the "pre mid-life crisis that afflicts a tremendous number of people in the 28-35 age range." Working 12-hour days to pay the rent on their Manhattan apartment, she and her husband of two years, Marc Hineman, a trading-desk manager, had "all kinds of questions" about how they would afford to buy a house and raise a family, she wrote.
"I have over 20 friends who are all unhappy with the rat race," she wrote. "It has reached the point where we joke about packing our belongings and moving to an island in the tropics to start our own modern-day commune." Looking back, Ms. Mauro says now, she and her friends did start a commune of sorts. Her story:
The Problem: "I was at a great New York company with progressive family-friendly policies. That was the scary thing. It was just the work itself, the nature of the business, that made life so hard. My husband and I were both making six-figure salaries, but buying a house seemed like an impossible dream. And I was letting work consume me. I felt like a leaf in a current, having no real effect on which way the water swept me.
The Solution: "After our daughter Ava was born in 2004, we made a decision: We want to live away from the craziness. We didn't want to feel pigeonholed by housing and financial obstacles. Life is so much bigger. I wanted to work, but I didn't want to have to work to pay a mortgage.
"It wasn't until Marc and I took a huge leap of faith that things started to fall into place for us. About 10 of my friends had moved to Charlotte, N.C., after college. They said, 'We're getting out of New York.' On a visit there in 2005, we saw a new house in a new subdivision that was under construction. It was priced attractively, and we took the leap and bought it. We made plans to move there with Ava -- before my husband even got a job in Charlotte. Talk about having faith! My grandfather said, 'You guys are nuts. You bought a house and your husband doesn't even have a job there? What are you doing?' But we felt we had to step out of our comfort zone a little and say, 'What if?'
"We knew we might have to have a commuter marriage temporarily, but that was a risk we were both prepared to take. Luckily, my husband got a job in Charlotte the day after we closed on the house. The power of positive thinking has a lot to do with that. Sometimes you just have a vision -- you know, 'This is right and we're going to find a way to make it work.'
"Living down here has given me the opportunity to be a full-time mom. I live two doors down from my best friend in college. On my block alone there are six kids within a month of my daughter's age. Half the people in our neighborhood are from the tri-state area. We call it 'Little New York.' It was the quality of life that attracted all of us. I went from an 800-square-foot apartment in Brooklyn to a 3,000-square-foot house with four bedrooms.
"I'm freelancing about 10-to-15 hours a week for my former boss. My income pays for extras, like vacations. [Ms. Mauro's New York-based boss, Ellen LaNicca Albanese, executive vice president, CRT/tanaka, of Richmond, Va., says the firm carved out a free-lance role for Ms. Mauro that has enabled her to help win new accounts and serve clients in the mid-Atlantic states.]
The Downside: "Being away from my extended family in New York has been a little tough. We talk all the time about their moving down here. My sister is 26 and she's facing some of the same questions I did. I told her to get on the five-year plan: Where do you see yourself in five years?
"Looking back, we have lost a few things. Nothing is ever going to be like New York. I'd like to be closer to family. And I'd love a really good bagel once in a while.
The Outcome: "But we've gained so much. Charlotte is a city that's growing. We can be at the beach in three hours and the mountains in 1-1/2 hours. Everybody is so family-oriented. In my old neighborhood in New York, I felt like people were working so much, always rushing, rushing. The pace of life is a little slower here. I don't feel like a leaf swept along in the current. I've learned to chill out a little more. That's been really good for my sanity. And my husband and I have the family life we want."
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-- February 23, 2007