Wayfare

Two-thousand miles is an incredibly long distance away from home, but that’s where I find myself living.

When I started studying for my first certification I had hopes it would be the catalyst for a new career, but I never thought it would eventually lead to a relocation across the country to Seattle.

It’s not an opportunity I expected nor planned to happen, and it went from potential outcome to reality much quicker than expected.

It wasn’t the first time that the prospect of relocating here had come up, and I was admittedly skeptical that it would ever happen. But it went from a maybe to a, “this is actually happening” seemingly overnight.

In a strange way, it seemed like this was always destined.

I’m not sure if it was my mother or father, but I recall one saying over twenty years ago that they didn’t expect me to stay in San Antonio, a statement which ended up being prophetic.

San Antonio doesn’t have an abundance of technology jobs, and if that was my interest it really felt like to progress I would have to eventually leave.

So when a really fascinating opportunity presented itself, it was a no-brainer that I would need to make this leap.

The challenge is that it required sacrificing quite a bit.

I would need to leave behind my house, my friends, and most difficult of all, my dog Piper who would stay with my mom. Seattle is not an inexpensive place, so I would go from living in an actual house to a studio apartment. Even moreso, that studio apartment would end up being more expensive than my house.

The move was challenging. From the moment it was a “sure thing”, I had about four weeks to prepare. This includes selling items I didn’t need, placing all my items in storage, prepping my house to sell (and inevitably rent out), procuring an apartment, and planning out the logistics of a major move.

Even with everything planned as best as I thought, lots still went wrong. Even though I had been sure I was ahead, so much more work needed to happen. Deciding what to take, asking for last minute services to trim trees, patch drywall, and then painting walls.

I had to really scrutinize what belongings would stay in San Antonio and what would make the cut to ride along in my RAV4 up to Seattle. As selective as I thought I was, I still packed too many items and had to make last minute decisions on what to leave behind.

I had planned to leave at 5am, but even with scrambling, I had much more work that needed to be completed and left at noon. This led to a difficult first day of driving where I was going on 4 hours of sleep and didn’t arrive to Phoenix, my first stop, until 2am absolutely exhausted.

But three days of driving, I had arrived at my destination. I signed my papers, and started moving my select belongings from my RAV4 to my apartment and started my new life in what feels like a new world.