Arrivals Curb

Sometime last year, San Francisco got under my skin.

Every time I'd visit the city, I'd regret leaving it more and more when it was time to head south to Palo Alto. *cue Moana song: it caaaaallls me*

But moving to the city meant finding a new apartment and that required $$$. And for me, that required a new job. Ideally, one in SF so I wouldn't have to commute.

And let me be very clear: trying to find a new job while you already have a full-time job and are also going to grad school full-time is f***ing insanity. It's hard, and tedious, and it hurts, and you have to slap a cheery smile on the whole time you're going through it because no one's supposed to know you're seeing other companies on the side. And every no is not just a no to a job you maybe really wanted, it's also a no to the new apartment and the other hopes and dreams tied up in landing a new gig. But eventually, thankfully, I pulled it off! So here I am.

And it feels damn good to have arrived at a "here."

5 years ago, I made a bunch of other big changes and arrived in California. And the shine of that new life lasted a good long while, and brought with it investments in other new things, like pursuing a different career field and enrolling in my MBA program.

And then, for a good long while, life got busy and very.much.in.motion. To stick with the metaphor from the title of this post, I was very much in the Departures Curb phase of life: a whirlwind of planning and preparing and hustling followed by long amounts of sitting in transit waiting to land somewhere.

And just like an international flight when you're sitting in coach and your body is folded up all small and the air is stale and perhaps your seat neighbor is irritating you a bit or perhaps a lot, this arena of life can feel......REALLY LONG.

Honestly, the last ~2 years of my life have felt.......REALLY LONG. I knew the finish lines were out there, and I knew I was investing in good things to come, but it often felt like there wasn't much immediate gratification for all the hard work. Lots of "means to an end" but mostly just the "means," ya know? Rewards and desired end goals at my job felt perpetually elusive and out of reach, and every new quarter of grad school rolled around with more and more quarters queued up behind it.

But then....

Things started happening all at once in a jumble around the 2017 to 2018 transition, when suddenly: job offer! new apartment! in the city! what is happening! And if the calendar says 2018, that means all my hustle at school is about pay off with a diploma before said calendar hits 2019.

Objectively, it's exciting. In practice, it's somewhat dizzying, like someone just spun me around really fast whilst blindfolded then tipped me into a stumbling walk forward. It's not bad, it's just all new and a bit disorienting.

Something tells me I'm still holding my breath.

And one of these days, whether soon or in a few weeks or months, I'm certain I'm going to have one of those startling wake-up moments where it all clicks into reality and I think, "Oh wow, this is real and it is my life and I deserve it and it isn't going away anytime soon." For now, I'm still waking up in my apartment (MY apartment! in the city!) a little bit lost in space -- floating pleasantly, but still adjusting to a new, altered state of gravity.

I guess it's like jet lag: when you're drowsily happy with the anticipation of being home, full of calm relief mixed with budding nostalgia for everything you just experienced, and tugging your luggage behind you through the revolving door that ultimately spits you out at the Arrivals Curb.

"Come pick me up; I've landed." Ben Folds