In preparation/inspiration for this blog post, I re-read every single post I’ve written. 2018 was a really big year for me and I sure hope 2019 will be just as big. I mean, it will definitely be very different (more “normal”*), but I hope it is still exciting enough to write blog posts. But also, if it isn’t, that’ll be great too. I am honestly so looking forward to living a predictable life, since the past 2 months were filled with so much uncertainty.

A week after Bill and I got married, we flew back to California. I still didn’t have a job and we still didn’t have a place to live, but we went straight to Bill’s work’s 1920’s themed holiday party after a quick shower once we landed in SF. Our wonderful friends let us crash at their beautiful home with their two adorable sons for the first few days while we looked for apartments. We ended up booking an AirBnB for a couple of weeks hoping that during that time we would find a great spot to call home. That was overly optimistic. I was also hoping that during that time I would find a job. That too was overly optimistic.

Not having a job these past two months has been demoralizing. Job searching is stressful and interviewing but not getting the job doesn’t make you feel good about yourself. It is really hard. And since I was trying to make a slight career pivot, from working at a traditional architecture firm to be in-house as a design and project manager for a (tech) company, I was picky as to which positions and companies I was applying to. This only added to the pressure I put on myself, and definitely made me question myself. I started having feelings I never felt before in my life, like feeling like a loser and imaging Bill thinking I was dead weight. (To clarify, he didn’t and doesn’t, but I just felt like that.) I convinced myself that January is a hard month to be job searching, and apartment or house searching, in general. By the time February rolled around, both searches were gaining more traction, so I started to feel a little better, but only slightly. Moving from AirBnB to AirBnB and living out of suitcases has really started to wear on me. It doesn’t feel good to be so unsettled. Ever since we got back from Kenya in November, we have been living out of our suitcases. That’s 4 months of a limited outfit rotation. But it is not about the lack of outfit variety and more about the lack of feeling settled. And being alone all day every weekday while Bill is at work in a tiny apartment that is not mine, that is sparsely decorated, in a neighborhood I am unfamiliar with, has definitely gotten to me. I noticed myself getting excited over the most boring happenings of the day, like when I walked to the grocery store and found tennis racket shaped pasta. Realizing that was the highlight of my day was a profound bummer.

In between apartment visits and job applications, and to distract myself from those stressful things, I bought $50 worth of face washes and creams and anti-wrinkle creams and pro-firm skin cream to see if that would help me feel (and look) better, I played lots and lots of frisbee which always makes me happy, wrote thank you cards (which we still have to mail), rode my bike up a hill (for that sweet and glorious downhill rush), hung out with friends at lunches/dinners, went on a hike with friends, downloaded the Lime app to ride a Lime scooter, ate a bunch of the most delicious salsa (Casa Sanchez), and binged some shows. My good friend Emily, who visited us in Kenya and who you might remember from the wedding and mugging blog posts, moved to SF to start a great job and has treated me to a couple of free lunches! It is very generous of her but mostly it is great to hang out with her. I am selfishly very glad she is here because she always knows what to say to make me feel better about myself. I have some really great friends. We hung out in the East Bay one night soon after I arrived to California to play board games at a board game bar. As we were leaving, I brought up the fact that I think/feel I have some residual PTSD** from the mugging and I am scared of being outside alone at night. My friend Tovah, who drove to the board game bar, offered to escort me home (I was on my bike). I kept trying to be brave and refusing, but she refused my refusal. She drove (out of her way) behind me while I biked the mile back to the AirBnB. I was very thankful she did that for me. Since then, I have been getting better. I know how terrible humans are at assessing risk, and though the likelihood of something bad happening is very low, my perception of it is heightened. Realizing this, and listening to fewer true crime podcasts, has been really helpful. Though I’m never giving up My Favorite Murder.

 

 

By the end of February, we found an apartment we loved in Jack London Square in Oakland, and my job search was inching toward an offer. And as March, our birthday month, rolled around, things finally started coming together: we see the end of suitcase living in sight! Move in day is on the 22nd, 3 days after I start my new job. Yup! You read correctly! I officially accepted a job offer – on my birthday – at a real estate startup designing workplaces! I was so happy to go out that night to a brewery to celebrate my birthday and my new job with food and drinks and friends. Having work and a home just on the horizon feels like a huge weight has been lifted. I am excited about this company and my position, and looking forward writing a blog post about a couple of months in once I know what I am doing. (Do we ever really know what we are doing?) And I am so excited for Bill’s parents to come to town before I start my job, and I hope the weather cooperates. It will be so nice spending quality time with them, and being able to be present in the moment and not have to worry about housing or work. I can’t wait to see them soon!

 

*Normal means such vastly different things for different people. I am referring to what has been normal to me in my life.

** Not having been diagnosed by a medical professional, I do not mean to be flippant or offensive. I respect that it is a very serious disorder that affects many different people in many different ways and do not throw the term around loosely.