Victoria McCarthy

I thought 2011 was a rough year; I had my first child, left my job and moved out of New England. To you it may not seem tough but to me it was earth shattering. I grew up in Massachusetts, went to college in New Hampshire, rented apartments near 3 different stops on 2 different colored MBTA lines, always lived within an hours drive of 80% of my extended family (3rd cousins included) and, most importantly to my personal definition of myself, I had dedicated the previous 10 years to the 50-60 hour a week grind of environmental consulting in Massachusetts. My job, where I was from and the family roots that were intertwined there made up everything that I had ever been. My world was small and familiar. I liked it that way. Nothing in my insular little world could ever prepare me for the me for the challenge of establishing myself as a stay-at-home Mum in a town over 400 miles away from my safety net and in a bar where nobody knows my name. So this is what the real world feels like. How have you all survived so long?