ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Family of 3 Can’t Come Home Again : A single mother who left Southern California with her sons to earn a master’s degree tried to return later and found the cost of living had closed the door on her family.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we would leave Southern California again and return to Utah State University in Logan, Utah, where I had graduated in 1971. Going backward felt uncomfortable. But I wanted to earn a master’s degree in communications and knew, as a single parent paying $630-a-month rent, it would have been impossible to do at home.

So I accepted a graduate teaching assistantship at USU. The job paid $400 a month plus tuition and I was told we could find a furnished two-bedroom apartment for about $275. Student loans would also help. The boys, then 9 and 12, helped move all our belongings into storage and we headed out of Orange County east on the Riverside Freeway toward the Intermountain West--where the living was cheaper and easier.

The three of us looked forward to our new adventure. We were a little battle-weary of the chaotic Southern California lifestyle: the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the smog, the crowds. But like many native Californians it was our home, and we knew we would be back in a few years.

Utah State University lies in beautiful Cache Valley surrounded on three sides by the majestic Wasatch mountains.

For two years we enjoyed the simplicity and the beauty of this lovely university town. School became my whole life. The boys were content in their new, safe environment.

When I finally graduated, I felt a sense of pride in my accomplishment, and the boys were proud of me too. We were ready to return home, find a new place to live in Orange County and reap the financial rewards commensurate with my degree.

To my complete and naive surprise, I found it wouldn’t be quite that simple.

First of all, professional communications jobs in Orange County are highly competitive. I applied for a public relations position in Newport Beach that pulled in 300 applications. Though I made the top 16 who were given interviews, I did not make the final cut.

I was offered a full-time reporter’s job on a weekly newspaper for $9,600 a year and a technical writing job at a computer company for $16,000 a year.

How could anyone survive in Orange County on salaries like those, unless they were still living at home with parents? Housing costs had gone sky high in the two years we had been away.

Without realizing it, I had let the door to Southern California quietly close behind us.

We’ve been gone five years now and I still don’t see any way in the near future of getting back. Let’s face it, even if I were to find an opening in my field, the salary would probably not cover the high cost of living.

In Utah, we’ve been able to maintain a fairly decent lifestyle. As director of public relations at Logan Regional Hospital, my career is blossoming. Financially we are getting back on our feet.

But not without regrets. No matter how hard we try, Utah doesn’t feel like home. Perhaps if I knew then what I know now about the difficulties of returning, we might never have left Southern California. I don’t know. But I do know that no matter what the developers do to it, or how crowded, frenzied or expensive it becomes, the energy, the diversity that makes California special, also makes it home.