Do you decide with heart or mind?

I have finally for the first time in my life found a man who loves me for me, and I’m in love – real adult realistic love. He’s not dependent or crazy or attempting to control me. I’m for the first time not playing out the dysfunctional drama of my relationship with my father. He is just happy to be with me and encourage me to grow and move toward my goals.

Except… he’s here in Casper, Wyoming, a place I’ve been saying I want to leave for three years, the same amount of time I’ve lived here, almost.

On Sunday, I received the offer for the D.C. job, a job like I’ve never been offered before – the culmination of my having kept all of those other jobs that weren’t the greatest, slogging my way through, moving forward. And now, I have this great invitation to accept this offer and work inside the Pentagon doing a job I love! A chance to move up and live in D.C., where there is always something to do. I was this mix of happy and sad when I read the offer letter. Happy because I’ve always wanted to be “accepted” into some great job somewhere, to feel like I belong with the rest of society and am worth just as much as “them” in the salary world, to really have that chance to prove myself. Sad, because I know I must choose between a very possible lifelong love and this opportunity; but I cannot have them both in one place.

Have you ever been faced with such an impending decision? And what do you make the decision with? The heart or the mind?