Over the Christmas break I was contacted by a recruiter at the Facebook office in Seattle, Washington. In the last ten days I had two phone interviews with some software developers, before being kindly turned down yesterday. Leading up to the interviews I looked into Seattle and Facebook, deciding if I should accept the job, were they to offer it. I became very excited about the prospect of moving to a big city and taking on a new job. All the signs seemed to point towards the end of April as a perfect time to leave. I felt like the next step in my life was to move on to bigger and better things.

And then with a simple email I’m back to where I was. Nothing has changed, but it feels like things are different. I told myself there was no harm in interviewing – as my dad put it, “You can’t turn down a job that hasn’t been offered to you” – but that was before I imagined everything that could happen in a new place. I was probably more excited about the change in scenery than the new job. Can I still be happy staying here when I was so ready to leave? Should I try looking for a new city anyway? If I stay, how long do I give myself to get back to normal?