Here I am. An at-home-mom of two, married nine and a half years to a guy who works harder than anybody I know. Thanks to him, we’re reaping some nice benefits.

We’re moving to Europe soon. The news isn’t public yet. So I’m writing, because I can’t talk. (Yet.)

We’ve been told that the wives of those on international assignments like my husband’s (with lots of travel, long hours) do not work outside the home. They “volunteer at their children’s school” and they spend a great deal of time “setting up and maintaining their new home.”

It’s nearly 2012. And I, who put myself through grad school with dreams of running a state department of health and human services, will be a corporate wife.

My job will be to take care of our family and our home. This work will be compensated, with full tuition at an international school covered by the corporation and a post-differential paid each month to account for a new and extremely high cost of living.

I am obscenely lucky. Lucky, because the hard work of being a good wife and mother and rolling with the changes demanded by a husband’s demanding job will not be ignored. It will be expected, and valued, by, for the first time, more than my family. It’s been priced out by a multi-national corporation, for pete’s sake!

Or so says my inner dialogue. I’ll try to write regularly and hope not to bore you and delude myself. Stay tuned.