After I returned from a monthslong research trip, my partner sat me down to talk. We'd moved in together shortly before my departure and, in my absence, she'd been pondering our future. “I don't want to leave Toronto. I love it here and so do you,” she said. I was in the third year of my Ph.D., and she worried my career plans would lead us elsewhere, first for a postdoc and then for a faculty position. Deep down, I knew this conversation was coming. Until then I hadn't given the issue much thought, but I knew she was right. I wanted to be with her more than I wanted to be a professor.