Yet another transition taking place, and it is no less giant. So far, my experience has been one long acid trip: I’m cold, I’m jittery, and my sense of time is fucked up beyond all recognition. And when the trip finally ends—IF it ends—I will never be the same again.
I rolled into town around 11am on Friday. Miranda in her ever-increasing greatness flew down 71 to get me to the airport in time. My flight was uneventful (good!) and I arrived without incident. I had three bags and a briefcase and no one to greet me.
Once outside, a limo driver flagged me down. I decided to pay the extra 10 bucks to arrive at my new home fabulously.
I met my roommates, tall girls with dark hair and bangs like me. I was stunned at how friendly they were. Both are photographers, one of whom was leaving to pursue a career in New York.
I now sleep in her room, a loft above our 1600+ square-foot studio. I expected that I wouldn’t be able to stand up in there, but I guess I wasn’t planning on having to climb a steep set of stairs. Given my agility, it will be a matter of days before I fall down them. Seriously, someone start a betting pool.
I met with the recruiter who got me my Intuit job, and we had a great conversation. It was completely refreshing to sit down with someone so enthusiastic and interested in my skills. Little did I know that my ardent online searches for tech writing jobs would bear almost limitless fruit, in the form of phone calls, e-mails, and bone-crunching slide tackles.
After my interview, I walked through the Fremont neighborhood and took a bus that dropped me off near the water. During a short walk home, I thought about how nice it was that there are so many busses that run so frequently. However, the system for payment is perplexing. My roommate, Kristen, tried to explain it to me (“Sometimes you pay when you get off if you’re going from Downtown to another neighborhood, or if you’re going from here to Capitol Hill, but at night you pay a different rate, but only if you’re not going Downtown, but if there’s a full moon then you have to hop on one foot as you enter the bus and then exit while flaggelating yourself with a giant salmon…”), but I just ended up blankly staring at her, deciding I would ask the driver. And this wasn’t a problem! The drivers here call out all the stops in their native tongue of English. Beautiful.
Unfortunately, the cabs here suck. None of the drivers have any idea where anything is, which is ridiculous because their whole job is to drive around and know where stuff is. Once I get my bearings and get a permanent job and home, I doubt I’ll need cabs very often anyway.
In between e-mails and phone interviews, I’ve been taking walks to get to know the city better. I of course returned to the Pike Street Farmer’s Market and window-shopped Downtown. Yesterday I ran along the Puget Sound, and today I visited the aquarium. I like seahorses, and contemplated having one tattooed on my left bicep. I don’t know if I’ll always love seahorses, but it’s something to contemplate.
The weather was rather nice my first few days here, but the honeymoon is over. Last night and this morning, I battled the rain as I tried to figure out who I am, where I’m going, and what I want to do with that information.
See, I came here to completely reinvent myself and live a new life. When making the decision to relocate here, I thought back to the last time I felt really good about my job and living situation as an independent person. I vowed to get in touch with the recruiter who facilitated that to see if he could make it happen again. There are jobs at Microsoft for me if I want them, but something in me is telling me to wait for (and continue seeking) the opportunity that’s right for me.
It’s so scary to leave a relationship and a home that are comfortable, though not invigorating. And although restarting my career looks promising, I am exploring the social aspects of my new life here and trying to figure out if this place will accept me. Yes, I feel like a child on her first day of school. My pencils are sharp and my notebooks are fresh… and that’s all I can really be sure of.
